Nuclei had been cooked in stellar interiors, not the two, three, four star-generations which have preceded the majority of the normal galaxy—here, a typical atom might well have gone through a dozen successive supernova explosions. Transformation built on transformation. Hydrogen and helium remained the commonest elements, but only because of overwhelming initial abundance. Otherwise the lighter substances had mostly become rare. Planets were like nothing ever known before. Giant ones did not have thick shells of frozen water, nor did smaller ones have extensive silicate crusts. Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium, aluminum, calcium were all but lost among…iron, gold, mercury, tungsten, bismuth, uranium and transuranics—On some little spheres Laure dared not land. They radiated too fiercely. A heavily armored robot might someday set foot on them, but never a living organism.

The crew of Makt didn’t offer to help him. Irrational in his hurt, he didn’t ask them. Jaccavrie could carry on any essential communication with their captain and navigator. He toiled until he dropped, woke, fueled his body, and went back to work. Between stars, he made detailed analyses of his samples. That was tricky enough to keep his mind off Graydal. Minerals like these could have formed nowhere but in this witchy realm.

Finally the ships took orbit around a planet that had atmosphere. “Do you indeed wish to make entry there?” the computer asked. “I would not recommend it.”

“You never recommend anything I want to do,” Laure grunted. “I know air adds an extra factor to reckon with. But I want to get some idea of element distribution at the surface of objects like that.” He rubbed bloodshot eyes. “It’ll be the last. Then we go home.”

“As you wish.” Did the artificial voice actually sigh?

“But after this long a time in space, you’ll have to batten things down for an aerodynamic landing.”

“No, I won’t. I’m taking the sled as usual. You’ll stay put.”

“You are being reckless. This isn’t an airless globe where I can orbit right above the mountaintops and see everything that might happen to you. Why, if I haven’t misgauged, the ionosphere is so charged that the sled radio can’t reach me.”

“Nothing’s likely to go wrong,” Laure said. “But should it, you can’t be spared. The Kirkasanters need you to conduct them safely out.”

“I—”

“You heard your orders.” Laure proceeded to discuss certain basic precautions. Not that he felt they were necessary. His objective looked peaceful—dry, sterile, a stone spinning around a star.

Nevertheless, when he departed the main hatch and gunned his gravity sled to kill velocity, the view caught at his breath.

* * *

Around him reached the shining fog. Stars and stars were caught in it, illuminating caverns and tendrils, aureoled with many-colored fluorescences. Even as he looked, one such point, steely blue, multiplied its brilliance until the intensity hurt his eyes. Another nova. Every stage of stellar evolution was so richly represented that it was as if time itself had been compressed—cosmos, what an astrophysical laboratory!