stronomers and at first believed to
be artificial, were actually put to the use specified by ancient
conjecture, just as further north they had been preempted as causeways
of civilization. Sime painfully worked his way around the post so that
he could look south. But here too nothing met his eye but the orange
cliffs with their patches of gray lichen. There was no comfort to be
had in that desolate landscape. Nevertheless, Sime kept moving
around, to keep the post between himself and the Sun. Already it was
beginning to scorch his skin uncomfortably.

By the time it was directly overhead Sime had stopped sweating. The
dry atmosphere was sucking the moisture out of his body greedily, and
his skin was burned red. His suffering was acute.

* * * * *

The Martian day is only a little more than a day on Earth, but to Sime
that afternoon seemed like an eternity. Small and vicious, with deadly
deliberation, the sun burned its way down a reluctant groove in the
purple heavens. Long before it reached the horizon, Sime was almost
unconscious. He did not see its sudden dive into the saw-edge of the
western mountains--knew only that night had come by the icy whistle of
the sunset wind that stirred and moaned for a brief interval among the
rocks. The keen, thin wind that first brought relief and then new
tortures, to be followed by freezing numbness.

Above, in the blackness, the stars burned malignantly. Drug to his
misery they were, those familiar constellations, which are about the
only things that look the same on all planets of the solar system. But
they were not friendly. They seemed to mock the motionless human
figure, so tiny, so inconsequential, that stared at them, numerous
tiny pinpricks of light, so remote.

There was no dawn, but after aeons Sime saw the familiar green disk of
Earth coming up in the east, one of the brightest stars. Sime fancied
he saw the tiny light flick of the moon. There would be a game of
blackjack going on somewhere there about now. He groaned. The Sun
would not be far behind now.

But he must have slept. The Sun was up before he was aware of it. A
man with a caduceus on his blouse collar was holding his wrist,
feeling his pulse. He seemed to be a medical officer of the Martian
army. His smooth, coral face was serious as he prodded Sime's
shriveled tongue.

"Water, quick!" he snapped,--"or he's done for."

* * * * *

His hea