by earthly standards; they probably don't feel pain, and
they haven't got what we'd call individuality. Any intelligence they
have is the property of the whole community--like an ant-heap. That's
it! Ants are willing to die for their ant-hill; so are these creatures."

"So are men," observed the captain, "if it comes to that."

"Yes, but men aren't exactly eager. It takes some emotion like
patriotism to work 'em to the point of dying for their country; these
things do it all in the day's work." He paused.

"Well, we took some pictures of the dream-beast and the
barrel-creatures, and then we started along. We sailed over Xanthus,
keeping as close to the meridian of the _Ares_ as we could, and pretty
soon we crossed the trail of the pyramid-builder. So we circled back to
let Leroy take a look at it, and when we found it, we landed. The thing
had completed just two rows of bricks since Tweel and I left it, and
there it was, breathing in silicon and breathing out bricks as if it had
eternity to do it in--which it has. Leroy wanted to dissect it with a
Boland explosive bullet, but I thought that anything that had lived for
ten million years was entitled to the respect due old age, so I talked
him out of it. He peeped into the hole on top of it and nearly got
beaned by the arm coming up with a brick, and then he chipped off a few
pieces of it, which didn't disturb the creature a bit. He found the
place I'd chipped, tried to see if there was any sign of healing, and
decided he could tell better in two or three thousand years. So we took
a few shots of it and sailed on.

"Mid afternoon we located the wreck of my rocket. Not a thing disturbed;
we picked up my films and tried to decide what next. I wanted to find
Tweel if possible; I figured from the fact of his pointing south that he
lived somewhere near Thyle. We plotted our route and judged that the
desert we were in now was Thyle II; Thyle I should be east of us. So, on
a hunch, we decided to have a look at Thyle I, and away we buzzed."

"_Der_ motors?" queried Putz, breaking his long silence.

"For a wonder, we had no trouble, Karl. Your blast worked perfectly. So
we hummed along, pretty high to get a wider view, I'd say about fifty
thousand feet. Thyle II spread out like an orange carpet, and after a
while we came to the grey branch of the Mare Chronium that bounded it.
That was narrow; we crossed it in half an hour, and there was Thyle
I--same orange-hued desert as it