The planet hid itself from the Earthmen—and what lay behind the mask was fierce and deadly! The planet wore a mask. At ten million miles, it was a sullen yellow eye. At one million, a scarred and evil leer. Outside the smoking circle our landing-jets had sterilized, it was a hideous veil of hairy black tentacles and huge sallow blooms, hiding the riddle of its sinister genes. On most worlds that we astronauts have found, the life is vaguely like our own. Similar nucleotides are linked along simi