The slow horror of remembrance crept across his face. Out there, in space, something had happened. I thought: It must have been frightful to leave such traces on Arnsen.
He read my thought. "Frightful? Perhaps. It was quite lovely, too. You remember the old days, when I thought of nothing but raising hell...."
After a long pause, I said, "Who was—the Crystal Circe?"
"I never knew her name. She told me, but my brain couldn't understand it. She wasn't human, of course. I called her Circe, after the enchantress who changed her lovers to swine." Again he looked at the darkening sky. "Well—it began more than two years ago, in Maine. Doug and I were on a fishing trip when we ran into the meteorite. Little fishing we got done then! You know how Doug was—like a kid reading a fairy tale for the first time. And that meteorite—"
CHAPTER ONE
The Star-Gem
It lay in the crater it had dug for itself, a rounded arc visible about the brown earth. Already sumac and vines were mending the broken soil. Warm fall sunlight slanted down through the trees as Douglas O'Brien and Steve Arnsen plodded toward the distant gurgling of the stream, thoughts intent on catching the limit. No fingering tendril of menace thrust out to warn them.
"Mind your step," Arnsen said, seeing the pit. He detoured around it and turned, realizing that O'Brien had not followed. "Come on, Doug. It's getting late."
O'Brien's tanned young face was intent as he peered down into the hollow. "Wait a bit," he said absently. "This looks—say! I'll bet there's a meteor down there!"