A gleaming binary swung in the blue sky, sending a moist warmth across the swaying fern-growths of the Fourteenth Planet . Feathered creatures of bright colors flashed through the underbrush and made noises there. A figure came stalking down through the shaded clearings, and small scaly bodies scurried out of sight, leaving ungainly tracks scrawled in the swamp mud. Tau, the metal man, a mechanical half-sentient messenger from the far distant past, strode impassively along, not heeding the small