THE STARS ARE OURS

Kimber was doubly careful in his take-off. He brought them up with much room to spare away from the cliff side and circled back toward the valley.

"This answers one question," Hogan leaned forward.

"We aren't the first intelligent life here."

"Yes." The pilot added nothing to that bare assent. He was intent on reaching the star ship.

Dard squirmed in his seat. He did not need to turn to see that smooth piece of metal, he could feel its presence and what its presence meant to all of them.

Only intelligence, a high standard of intelligence could have fashioned it. And where was that intelligent life now? Watching and waiting for the Terrans to make the first fatal move?

4: THOSE OTHERS!

"EASY DOES IT NOW." Cully laid down the chisel he had been using delicately and applied pressure with the flat of his hand.

The others weren't really breathing down his neck. But they did struggle against the curiosity which made them crowd about the engineer as he worked to open the cylinder.

"It's too light for an explosive," Hogan repeated for about the fiftieth time since they had unloaded their find before the star ship.

At a good vantage point up on the ramp Carlee Skort and Trude Harmon sat together while the men below tried to hand Cully tools he didn't need and generally got in each other's way. But now they had come to the last moment of suspense. After more than an hour's work the engineer had been able to force open the small seal hatch.

Cully bumped heads with Kimber and Kordov as he flashed a torch beam into the interior. Then, with infinite care, he began to hand out to eager assistants a series of boxes, small round containers and a larger, ornamented chest. All these were fashioned of the same lightweight alloy as the large carrier and they appeared unmarked by time.

"Cargo carrier;" Kimber decided. "What can be in these?" He held one of the smallest boxes to his ear and shook it cautiously, but there was no answering rattle.

Kordov picked up the chest, examining its fastening carefully. At last he shook his head and brought out a pocket knife, working the blade into the crevice between lid and side, using it to lever up the cover.

Soft creamy stuff puffed up as the pressure of the lid was removed, fluffing over the rim. The First Scientist plucked it carefully away in strips. As the late afternoon sun struck full on the contents which had been protected by that packing, there was a concerted gasp from the Terrans.

"What are they?" someone demanded.

Kordov picked up a fine intwisted strand, dangling its length in the light.

"Opals?" he suggested. "No, these are too hard, cut in facets. Diamonds? I don't think so. I confess I have never seen anything like them before."

"A world's ransom," Dard did not know he had spoken aloud. The wild beauty swinging from Kordov's hand drew him as no man-fashioned thing had done before.

"Any more in there?" asked Kimber. "That's a large box to hold only one item."

"We shall see. Girls," Kordov held out the rope of strange jewels to the two women, "hang on to that."

Another layer of the packing was pulled out to display a pair of bracelets. This time red stones which Santee identified.

"Them's rubies! I prospected in the Lunar mountains and found some just like 'em. Good color. What else you. got there, Tas?"

A third layer of packing led to the last and greatest wonder of all-a belt, five inches wide, with a clasp so set in gems as to be just an oval glitter-the belt itself fashioned of rows of tiny crystalline chains.

Trude Harmon tried to clasp it about her waist to discover it would not meet by inches. Nor was Carlee able to wear it either.

"Must have bin mighty slim, the girl what wore that!" Harmon commented.

"Maybe she wasn't a girl at all," Carlee said.

And there was something daunting in that thought.

Carlee had been the first to put into words their lurking fear, that those who had packed the carrier had been nonhuman.

"Well, bracelets argue arms," Rogan pointed out. "And that necklace went around a neck. A belt suggests a waist-even if it is smaller than yours, girls. I think we can believe that the lady those were meant for wasn't too far removed from our norm."

Santee pawed another box away from the pile. "Let's see the rest."

The boxes were sealed with a strip of softer metal which had to be peeled from around the edge. And the first three they forced contained unidentifiable contents. Two held packages of dried twigs and leaves, the third vials filled with various powders and a dark scum which might have been the remains of liquid. These were turned over to Kordov for further investigation.