n's failing.

[Illustration: "It's nothing. Close the exit; we depart at once."]

The Forgotten Planet was not always so named. The name that it once bore
had been, as every child knows, stricken from the records, actual and
mental, of the Universe. It is well that evil should not be remembered.
But in order that this history may be clear in the centuries to come, my
record should go back to beginnings.

So far as the Universe is concerned, the history of the Forgotten Planet
begins with the visit of the first craft ever to span the space between
the worlds: the crude, adventuresome _Edorn_, whose name, as well as
the names of the nine Zenians who manned her, occupy the highest places
in the roll of honor of the Universe.

Ame Baove, the commander and historian of the _Edorn_, made but brief
comment on his stop at the Forgotten Planet. I shall record it in full:

"We came to rest upon the surface of this, the fourth of the
planets visited during the first trip of the _Edorn_, eighteen
spaces before the height of the sun. We found ourselves surrounded
immediately by vast numbers of creatures very different from
ourselves, and from their expressions and gestures, we gathered
that they were both curious and unfriendly.

"Careful analysis of the atmosphere proved it to be sufficiently
similar to our own to make it possible for us to again stretch our
legs outside the rather cramped quarters of the _Edorn_, and tread
the soil of still another world.

"No sooner had we emerged, however, than we were angrily beset by
the people of this unfriendly planet, and rather than do them
injury, we retired immediately, and concluded our brief
observations through our ports.

"The topography of this planet is similar to our own, save that
there are no mountains, and the flora is highly colored almost
without exception, and apparently quite largely parasitical in
nature. The people are rather short in stature, with hairless heads
and high foreheads. Instead of being round or oval, however, the
heads of these people rise to a rounded ridge which runs back from
a point between and just above the eyes, nearly to the nape of the
neck behind. They give evidence of a fair order of intelligence,
but are suspicious and unfriendly. From the number and size of the
cities we saw, this planet is evidently thickly populated.