d," Nielson said. "This
is not a forest. This is a grove. These trees didn't just grow here in
straight orderly lines. They were _planted_! We are hiding in what may
be the equivalent of somebody's apple orchard."

The trees were giants. Twenty feet through at the butt, they rose a
hundred feet into the air. Diminishing in the distance, they moved in
regular rows down to the shore of the lake, forming a pleasant grove
miles in extent. A reddish fruit, not unlike apples, grew on them.

If this was an orchard, where was the owner?

CHAPTER III

The Four Visitors

"Somebody coming!" the lookout called.

Jed Hargraves dropped the shovel. Behind him the hiss of an electric
cutting torch and the whang of a heavy hammer went into sudden silence.
Back there, a hundreds yards away, they had already begun work on the
ship, attempting to repair the hole gouged in the stout magna steel of
the hull. They had heard the call of the lookout and were dropping tools
to pick up weapons. Jed's hand slid down to his belt to the compact
vibration pistol holstered there. He pulled the gun, held it ready in
his hand. Ron Val and Nielson did the same.

Vega, slanting downward, was near the western horizon. The grove was a
mass of shadows. Through the shadows something was coming.

"They're human!" Ron Val gasped.

Hargraves said nothing. His fingers tightened around the butt of the
pistol as he waited. He saw them clearly now. There were four of them.
They looked like--old men. Four tribal gray-beards out for a stroll in
the cool of the late afternoon. Each carried a staff. They were walking
toward the ship. Then they saw the little group that stood apart and
turned toward them.

"The teletron. Will you go get it, please, Ron Val?"

Nodding, the astro-navigator ran back to the ship. The teletron was a
new gadget, invented just before the expedition left earth. Far from
perfection as yet, it was intended to aid in establishing telepathic
communication between persons who had no common language. Sometimes it
worked, a little. More often it didn't. But it might be useful here. Ron
Val was panting when he returned with it.

"Are you going to talk to them, Jed?"

"I'm going to try."

The four figures approached. Hargraves smiled. That was to show his good
intentions. A smile ought to be common language everywhere.

The four strangers did not return his smile. They just stopped and
looked at him with no trace of emotion on