damage was probably done before the ship landed. Certainly there was not
enough heat generated after the crash to have done that damage." His
hand moved over the control panel in the armrest of his chair, and the
scene changed.

"This was taken from the ground. Those lumps you see are the pieces of
metal I was talking about. Notice the fine white powdery ash, which
caused the white spot that you could see from the air. That is evidently
all that is left of the hull and the rest of the ship. None of it is
radioactive.

"Random samplings from various parts of the area show that the ash
consists of magnesium, lithium, and beryllium carbonates."

"You don't mean oxides?" said one of the others.

"No. I mean carbonates. And some silicate. We estimate that the
remaining ash could not have constituted more than ten percent of the
total mass of the hull of the ship. The rest of it vaporized, apparently
into carbon dioxide and water."

"Some kind of plastic?" hazarded one of the men.

"Undoubtedly, if you want to use a catchall term like 'plastic'. But
what kind of plastic goes to pieces like that?"

That rhetorical question was answered by a silence.

"There's no doubt," said one of them after a moment, "that
circumstantial evidence alone would link the alien with the ship. But
have you any more conclusive evidence?"

The hand moved, and the scene changed again. It was not a pretty scene.

"That, as you can see, is a closeup of the late Wang Kulichenko, the
forest ranger who was the only man ever to see the alien ship before it
was destroyed. Notice the peculiar bruises on the cheek and ear--the
whole side of the head. The pattern is quite similar on the other side
of the head."

"It looks--umm--rather like a handprint."

"It is. Kulichenko was slapped--_hard!_--on both sides of his head. It
crushed his skull." There was an intake of breath.

"This next picture--" The scene changed. "--shows the whole body. If
you'll look closely you'll see the same sort of prints on the ground
around it. All very much like handprints. And that ties in very well
with the photographs of the alien itself."

"There's no doubt about it," said one of the others. "The connection is
definitely there."

The lecturer's hand moved over the control panel again, and suddenly the
screen was filled with the image of an eight-limbed horror with four
glaring violet eyes. In spite of themselves, a couple of the men gasped.
They had seen pho