HE SLEPT BY himself in one of the guest rooms on the topmost level of the station. Awakening unexpectedly early, he watched the sunrise coming over the gorge, and went down to walk through the gardens, which still were glistening with dew. He strolled as far as the edge of the river, looking for his nildoror companions; but they were not to be seen. For a long time he stood beside the river watching the irresistible downward sweep of that immense volume of water. Were there fish in the river here, he wondered? How did they avoid being carried over the brink? Surely anything once caught up in that mighty flow would have no choice but to follow the route dictated for it, and be swept toward the terrible drop.

He went back finally to the station. By the light of morning Seena’s garden seemed less sinister to him. Even the plants and animals of the plateau appeared merely strange, not menacing; each geographical district of this world had its own typical fauna and flora, that was all, and it was not the fault of the plateau’s creatures that man had not chosen to make himself at ease among them. A robot met him on the first veranda and offered him breakfast.

“I’ll wait for the woman,” Gundersen said.

“She will not appear until much later in the morning.”

“That’s odd. She never used to sleep that much.”

“She is with the man,” the robot volunteered. “She stays with him and comforts him at this hour.”

“What man?”

“The man Kurtz, her husband.”

Gundersen said, amazed, “Kurtz is here at the station?”

“He lies ill in his room.”

She said he was away somewhere, Gundersen thought. She didn’t know when he’d be coming back.

Gundersen said, “Was he in his room last night?”

“He was.”

“How long has he been back from his last journey away from here?”

“One year at the solstice,” the robot said. “Perhaps you should consult the woman on these matters. She will be with you after a while. Shall I bring breakfast?”

“Yes,” Gundersen said.

But Seena was not long in arriving. Ten minutes after he had finished the juices, fruits, and fried fish that the robot had brought him, she appeared on the veranda, wearing a filmy white wrap through which the contours of her body were evident. She seemed to have slept well. Her skin was clear and glowing, her stride was vigorous, her dark hair streamed buoyantly in the morning breeze; but yet the curiously rigid and haunted expression of her eyes was unchanged, and clashed with the innocence of the new day.

He said, “The robot told me not to wait breakfast for you. It said you wouldn’t be down for a long while.”

“That’s all right. I’m not usually down this early, it’s true. Come for a swim?”

“In the river?”

“No, silly!” She stripped away her wrap and ran down the steps into the garden. He sat frozen a moment, caught up in the rhythms of her swinging arms, her jouncing buttocks; then he followed her. At a twist in the path that he had not noticed before, she turned to the left and halted at a circular pool that appeared to have been punched out of the living rock on the river’s flank. As he reached it, she launched herself in a fine arching dive, and appeared to hang suspended a moment, floating above the dark water, her breasts drawn into a startling roundness by gravity’s pull. Then she went under. Before she came up for breath, Gundersen was naked and in the pool beside her. Even in this mild climate the water was bitterly cold.

“It comes from an underground spring,” she told him. “Isn’t it wonderful? Like a rite of purification.”

A gray tendril rose from the water behind her, tipped with rubbery claws. Gundersen could find no words to warn her. He pointed with short stabbing motions of two fingers and made hollow chittering noises of horror. A second tendril spiraled out of the depths and hovered over her. Smiling, Seena turned, and seemed to fondle some large creature; there was a thrashing in the water and then the tendrils slipped out of view.

“What was that?”

“The monster of the pool,” she said. “Ced Cullen brought it for me as a birthday present two years ago. It’s a plateau medusa. They live in lakes and sting things.”

“How big is it?”

“Oh, the size of a big octopus, I’d say. Very affectionate. I wanted Ced to catch me a mate for it, but he didn’t get around to it before he went north, and I suppose I’ll have to do it myself before long. The monster’s lonely.” She pulled herself out of the pool and sprawled out on a slab of smooth black rock to dry in the sun. Gundersen followed her. From this side of the pool, with the light penetrating the water at just the right angle, he was able to see a massive many-limbed shape far below. Seena’s birthday present.

He said, “Can you tell me where I can find Ced now?”

“In the mist country.”

“I know. That’s a big place. Any particular part?”

She rolled over onto her back and flexed her knees. Sunlight made prisms of the droplets of water on her breasts. After a long silence she said, “Why do you want to find him so badly?”

“I’m making a sentimental journey to see old friends. Ced and I were very close, once. Isn’t that reason enough for me to go looking for him?”

“It’s no reason to betray him, is it?”

He stared at her. The fierce eyes now were closed; the heavy mounds of her breasts rose and fell slowly, serenely.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“Didn’t the nildoror put you up to going after him?”

“What kind of crazy talk is that?” he blurted, not sounding convincingly indignant even to himself.

“Why must you pretend?” she said, still speaking from within that impregnable core of total assurance. “The nildoror want him brought back from there. By treaty they’re prevented from going up there and getting him themselves. The sulidoror don’t feel like extraditing him. Certainly none of the Earthmen living on this planet will fetch him. Now, as an outsider you need nildoror permission to enter the mist country, and since you’re a stickler for the rules you probably applied for such permission, and there’s no special reason why the nildoror should grant favors to you unless you agree to do something for them in return. Eh? Q.E.D.”

“Who told you all this?”

“Believe me, I worked it all out for myself.”

He propped his head on his hand and reached out admiringly with the other hand to touch her thigh. Her skin was dry and warm now. He let his hand rest lightly, and then not so lightly, on the firm flesh. Seena showed no reaction. Softly he said, “Is it too late for us to make a treaty?”

“What kind?”

“A nonaggression pact. We’ve been fencing since I got here. Let’s end the hostilities. I’ve been hiding things from you, and you’ve been hiding things from me, and what good is it? Why can’t we simply help one another? We’re two human beings on a world that’s much stranger and more dangerous than most people suspect, and if we can’t supply a little mutual aid and comfort, what are the ties of humanity worth?”

She said quietly,

The words of the old poem flowed up from the well of his memory. His voice cut in:

“’Where ignorant armies clash by night,’” she finished for him. “Yes. How like you it is, Edmund, to fumble your lines just at the crucial moment, just at the final climax.”