Lilith—anything that pretty’s got to have a snake in it. Cerberus—looks like a real dog. Medusa—anybody who lives here would have to have rocks in his head.

And that was it That, the coordinates, and the caution “ZZ,” which meant that there was something about the place he didn’t like but that he couldn’t put his finger on. Dangerous—proceed with extreme caution.

When the first party, armed to the teeth, reached it, they immediately perceived what spooked Warden beyond the existence of the incredible four planets. They seemed to be at right angles to each other around their F-type star.

It turned out, of course, that this configuration was a freak occurrence—nobody since has seen the Diamond form as perfectly as Warden when he discovered it, and there was really nothing unnatural about such once-in-a-lifetime configurations, but the early name stuck. The Warden Diamond.

An enormous amount of space junk was in the system—asteroids, comets, you name it, as well as the usual gas giants—but the second through fifth planets were what held everyone spellbound. Each was within the life zone for temperature; all had atmospheres of nitrogen and oxygen, all had water.

Charon, at 158.551 million kilometers from its sun, was a hot, steamy jungle world with bubbling mud and horrible heat and humidity. The dominant life form seemed to be large reptilian creatures that resembled the smaller dinosaurs. Indeed, the planet did look like some visions of hell.

Lilith, at 192.355 million kilometers, was an Eden, a warm paradise all over. Heavily forested, and rich in a variety of plant life, the planet was inhabited by insects from very small to tremendous. The fruit proved edible, the grasses versatile, and even the insects were sources of protein. It was a paradise, all right, with nary a snake in sight. Yet.