"

Kinton turned away from the window as he caught the glint of Tepokt's
sun upon the hull of the spaceship they had also built for him. Perhaps
... would it be fair to encourage the newcomer to attempt the barrier?

For ten years, Kinton had failed to work up any strong desire to try it.
The Tepoktans called the ever-shifting lights the Dome of Eyes, after
a myth in which each tiny satellite bright enough to be visible was
supposed to watch over a single individual on the surface. Like their
brothers on Terra, the native astronomers could trace their science back
to a form of astrology; and Kinton often told them jokingly that he felt
no urge to risk a physical encounter with his own personal Eye.

* * * * *

The helicopter started to descend, and Kinton remembered that the city
named in his message was only about twenty miles from his home. The
brief twilight of Tepokt was passing by the time he set foot on the
landing field, and he paused to look up.

The brighter stars visible from this part of the planet twinkled back at
him, and he knew that each was being scrutinized by some amateur or
professional astronomer. Before an hour had elapsed, most of them would
be obscured by the tiny moonlets, some of which could already be seen.
These could easily be mistaken for stars or the other five planets of
the system, but in a short while the tinier ones in groups would cause
a celestial haze resembling a miniature Milky Way.

Klaft, who had descended first, leaving the pilot to bring up the rear,
noticed Kinton's pause.

"Glory glitters till it is known for a curse," he remarked, quoting a
Tepoktan proverb often applied by the disgruntled scientists to the Dome
of Eyes.

Kinton observed, however, that his aide also stared upward for a long
moment. The Tepoktans loved speculating about the unsolvable. They had
even founded clubs to argue whether two satellites had been destroyed or
only one.

Half a dozen officials hastened up to escort the party to the vehicle
awaiting Kinton. Klaft succeeded in quieting the lesser members of the
delegation so that Kinton was able to learn a few facts about the new
arrival. The crash had been several hundred miles away, but someone had
thought of the hospital in this city which was known to have a doctor
rating as an expert in human physiology. The survivor--only one occupant
of the wreck, alive or dead, had been discovered--had accordingly been
flo