"Where's that?"
"On a far world—called Vallon."
"Yeah? And what next?"
"I looked around me and saw four men lying on the floor, slashed and bloody. One was alive. I gave him what emergency treatment I could, then searched the ship. I found three more men, dead; none living. Then the Hunters attacked, swarming to me—"
"Our friends the fire-balls?"
"Yes; they would have sucked the life from me—and I had no shield of light. I fled to the lifeboat, carrying the wounded man. I descended to the planet below: your earth. The man died there. He had been my friend, a man named Ammaerln. I buried him in a shallow depression in the earth and marked the place with a stone."
"The ancient sinner," I said.
"Yes ... I suppose it was his bones the lay brother found."
"And we found out last night that the depression was the result of dirt sifting into the ventilator shaft. But I guess you didn't know anything about the underground installation, way back then. Doesn't the journal say anything...?"
"No there is no mention made of it here." Foster shook his head. "How curious to read of the affairs of this stranger—and know he is myself."