Jainet and Dunna, one of the research assistants, noticed through the large filters they had constructed for the search that one tiny area near the north pole of the planet was conspicuous by the absence of the all-pervasive lightning.

Flying over to it they saw below them a deep hexagonal hole of total darkness. They were reluctant to explore further without consultation, and so radioed for the rest to come up.

“I don’t see anything,” Skander complained, disappointed. “There’s no hex hole here.”

“But there was!” Jainet protested, and Dunna nodded in agreement. “It was right there, almost directly over the pole. Here! I’ll prove it!” She went over and rewound the flyer’s nose camera recording disk a little more than halfway. They watched the playback in skeptical silence, as the ground rolled beneath them on the screen. Then, suddenly, there it was.

“See!” Jainet exclaimed. “What did I tell you!”

And it was there, clearly, unquestionably. Varnett looked at the screen, then to the scene below them, then back again. It all checked. There had been a hexagonal hole, almost two kilometers across at its widest point. The landmarks matched—it was at this spot.

But there wasn’t a hole there now.

They waited then, almost an entire day. Suddenly the flat plain seemed to vanish and there was the hole again.

They photographed it and ran every analysis test on it they could.

“Let’s drop something in,” Varnett suggested at last.

They found a spare pressure suit and, hovering directly over the hole, the light on the suit turned on, they dropped it in.

The suit struck the hole. “Struck” is the only word they had for it. The suit hit the top of the hole and seemed to stick there, not dropping at all. Then, after hovering a moment, it seemed to fade before their eyes. Not drop, but fade—for even the films showed that it didn’t fall. It simply faded out to nothingness.