d slowly, like a stain through water. But something illuminated a
vast, vaulted interior, Gothic in a sense, with a church-like air of
gloom and mystery. It was Gothic, but of spiderweb delicacy, soaring
arches, vague fretted ceilings, walls intricately carved into lacework
of stone. Everywhere were echoes of that same eery symbolism in the door
hieroglyph, and Newlin's folk-memories were oddly disturbed.

* * * * *

He could not place the feeling. Certainly none of the symbols bore even
slight resemblance to any written language known to him.

Something about their intricacy clouded even clear perception, and the
emotional effect was not religious in any sense--it was stark, abysmal
fear, as if the mysteries behind such symbols were too great for
humanity to bear.

Ignoring him, Songeen persisted at her curious tasks. Newlin went and
stood beside her, watching.

With gloved hand, she appeared to be tracing out some maze of deep cut
markings that figured what must have been an altar-fane.

"Do you expect any results from this ritual mumbo-jumbo?" he questioned
irritably.

Songeen looked up, startled. "Not more ritual than any other
mathematics," she chided. "This is no temple, as you seem to imagine. It
is the old quarantine station. I seek a doorway, but not into a hidden
passage. There are other doorways. This one leads between dimensions. My
world exists in a different plane. At least, our pathway to it follows
strange ways, that you could never understand. You are no scientist or
scholar. How could you grasp such unknown and forgotten matters? How
could anyone in your world?"

Newlin stared at her, seeing things he had only guessed before.

"You are--_alien_," he said.

"You can't guess how alien," she answered. "I said I was not of Venusian
stock. My people came from outside. Our world exists in the same plane
as yours, a planet circling one of the nearer stars. This place was
never our home, but we had colonies on Venus, Earth, Mars and one of
Jupiter's moons. Other colonies--like this one--and observatories and
quarantine stations. Our scientific observers and the medical staff
stayed here. They studied and recorded and treated.

"We were not gods nor demons nor anything else supernatural. Just a
people not human, but not too remote from humanity. Just emissaries and
workers, students and doctors. You might call us elder brothers to the
human race. We came not to conque