“I told him not touch it – death and damnation were sure to follow.”

“You have seen it. All right, Cap, you can let up on the arm – but stand ready.” I rooted in my pocket and took out a handful of silver cylinders, the local money, let the light shine on them. “Hey you, Smelly, look-fedha-and all for you. All yours.”

This got his attention all right and I closed my fist tight as he groped for them. “Yours if you answer some simple questions. You will not be hurt-but only if you answer truthfully. You have seen this thing?”

“They fled. We found it in their skyship. I touched it, unclean, unclean.”

“You’re doing fine.” I shook half of the coins into his waiting hand. “Now the ten-thousand-fedha question. Where is it now?”

“Sold, sold to them. The Paradisians. May they be cursed by it, cursed forever… ”

It wasn’t easy, but we finally worked all the details out of him. Stripped of all the curses and blasphemy it was a simple tale of larceny and chicanery. The spacer had landed-and been attacked as soon as the door had been opened. During the fracas the Fundamentaloids had trundled through the ship and grabbed everything portable, including the container with the alien artifact. They had carried the whole thing away with them because they had a job opening it. When they eventually succeeded they could not understand what it was. And ignorance meant fear. So they had unloaded it in the market in Paradise where almost anything could be sold. End of story.

We let the shepherd keep the money when we lowered him, unconscious, to the ground. “This calls for consultation,” I said.

“Yes, but not this close to the flock. Let’s get up to the plateau where the air is fresher.”

The others were awake when we landed this time, listening closely to what we had discovered.

“Well this narrows the field a bit,” Madonette said.

“Does it?” I asked. “How big is the population of this paradisaical nation?”

“Around one hundred thousand,” Tremearne admitted. “It may not be the best society on this planet but it appears to be the most successful one. I know very little about it, just photographs and observation.”

“Doesn’t anyone in the Pentagon know more?”

“Probably. But the information is classified and they aren’t talking.”

I cracked my knuckles, scowled and jabbed my finger at him. “That’s really not good enough – is it?”

Tremearne looked as unhappy as I did. “No, Jim, it is not. I don’t know why all that information is classified while your group is actually operating here on the planet. I have tried to get the information and have been not only rebuffed but warned off.”

“Who is doing this? Any idea?”

“None-other than that it is at the very highest level. The people I have been in contact with understand your problems and want to help. But any requests that they pass on are turned down instantly and with prejudice.”

“Am I paranoid – or is there someone in the chain of command who doesn’t like this operation? Who wants it to fail?”

It was Tremearne’s turn now to crack his knuckles and look glum.

“I’ve told you – I am a career officer. But I’m not fond of the situation here on this planet. Not only the way your group is being treated, but the whole ugly business. Well, I feel that it is getting away from me. At first I thought I could get some reform here by working through channels. It’s not good enough. I am being blocked just as completely as you are.

“Who – and why?”

“I don’t know. But I am doing my best to find out. About this city and the Paradisians I guess, basically, I know absolutely nothing.”

“An honest answer, Captain, and I thank you for it.”

“If you don’t know-why then we’ll just have to find out for ourselves,” Steengo said. “Play a gig or two and keep our eyes open.

“May it be so easy,” I muttered under my breath. “Roll out the maps.”

It looked as though the largest part of the population was located in the single straggling city. Roads led from it to not-too-distant villages and there were scatterings of other buildings that might be farms. The only really puzzling thing about the 3D map was what looked like a wall that appeared to cut the city in two. There were no walls around the city, just this single one in the middle. I pointed to it.

“Any idea what this is-or what it means?”

Tremearne shook his head. “No idea. Looks like a wall, that’s all. But there is a road alongside it. Which appears to be the only road leading in from the plain.”

I poked my finger into the holomap.

“Here. Where the road fades and runs out in the grass. That’s where we have to go. Unless anyone has a better idea?”

“Looks good to me,” Tremearne said. “I’ll land you on this bit of plateau, beyond this ridge where we won’t be seen. Then I’ll take the launch out of there and stay in touch with you by radio.”

We unloaded. “Sleep first,” Floyd yawned. “It’s been a long night.”

It was even longer than that, what with the longer days here. Tremearne took off and we settled down to sleep. We slept, and woke up and it was still dark. Slept some more. At least the others snored on: I had too much on my mind to drift off as easily as they did. We had a clue now to the whereabouts of the alien artifact. A clue that was useless until we started looking. And we couldn’t look in the darkness. And I had how many days left before the thirty-day poison zonked me? I counted on my fingers. Just about eighteen gone, which left twelve to go. Wonderful. Or had I counted wrong? I started again with the fingers, then grew angry with myself. Enough with the fingers already. I clicked on my computer and wrote a quick program. Then touched D for deadline-or death, whatever-and a glowing eighteen appeared before me accompanied by a flickering twelve. Not that I enjoyed looking at them, mind you, but this way I could stop worrying about the changing count. Some part of me must have been satisfied with this because I fell deeply asleep.

Finally, with great reluctance and sloth, the sky lightened and another day began. Before it was completely light the Captain drifted the launch in low and slow behind the hills, boarded us, then let us out behind the final ridge.

“Good luck,” he said, with a certain grimness. The port ground shut and the launch moved away and vanished in the growing light. Scarcely aware of what I was doing I punched D into the computer. The numbers snapped into existence, vanished just as quickly. But I remembered. Day nineteen.

Dawn crept on interminably as we walked, the sun dragging itself up over the horizon only with great reluctance. It was still not quite full daylight when we came to what had to be the beginning of the wall. Just a single row of bricks almost hidden in the grass.

“What do you think?” I asked of no one in particular. Steengo bent and rapped one with his knuckles.

“Brick,” he said.

“Red brick,” Madonette said brightly.

“Thanks, thanks,” I mumbled with complete lack of appreciation.

There was a barely visible path next to the right-hand side of the row of bricks; for want of a better idea we began walking along it.

“It’s higher, see,” Floyd said, pointing. “A second course has been added.”

“And more still ahead,” Madonette said. “Three bricks high now.”

“What’s this?” Steengo said, bending and pushing the grass aside to look more closely, touching the brick with his fingertip. “There’s some kind of symbol stamped into each of the bricks.” We all looked now.

“Sort of a circle with an arrow sticking out of it.”

“Arrow… circle,” I muttered. A sudden intuition bounced about inside my skull. “I’ve seen that symbol before -yes indeed! Would someone kindly step over the wall and see if there is a circle with a cross sticking out of it on the other side.”