CHIP THOUGHT AFTERWARD that never in his life had he ever looked upon such stark, forbidding coldness as that which, in the next moment, flamed upon him from the eyes of the newly arrived Earthman.
Everything about the man was cold, bitter and bleak as the hostile depths of space. His eyes were glacier-gray, his lips thin and bloodless as hoarfrost; the hand he shoved forward to grip Chip’s wrist in steely grasp was like ice.
The coldness of death was in his voice, although he spoke with infinite quietude.
“I might ask the same of you, sailor.” The man had raven-black hair save where, from a widow’s peak, one single swatch of pure white sprang startlingly to lie like a stream of ice between dark banks. “By what right do you intrude on a private party?”
Chip shook the man’s hand from hi
