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a hundred thousand years ago. They are all dead. Dead and buried long ago."
    The ship fled outward. Behind it, the nova began to erupt, in all its terrifying, inhuman glory.

THE DEVIL IN THE DARK
    (Gene L. Coon)
----

    Janus was an ugly planet, reddish-brown, slowly rotating, with a thick layer of clouds so turbulent that it appeared to be boiling. Not a hospitable place, but a major source of pergium—an energy metal-like plutonium, meta-stable, atomic number 358; the underground colony there was long-established, highly modern, almost completely automated. It had never given any trouble.
    "Almost fifty people butchered," Chief Engineer Vanderberg said bitterly. He was standing beside his desk, nervous and urgent; facing him were Kirk, Spock, Lt. Commander Giotto, Doc McCoy and a security officer named Kelly. "Production's at an absolute stop."
    "I can see that," Kirk said, gesturing toward the chart on the office wall, which showed a precipitous dip. "But please slow down, Mr. Vanderberg. What's the cause?"
    "A monster." Vanderberg stared at the Enterprise delegation with belligerent defensiveness, as though daring them to deny it. He was clearly highly overwrought.
    "All right," Kirk said. "Let's assume there's a monster. What has it done? When did it start?"
    Vanderberg made an obvious effort to control himself. He pushed a button on his desk communicator, which sat near a globe some ten inches in diameter of what appeared to be some dark-gray crystalline solid. "Send Ed Appel in here," he told it, and then added to Kirk, "My production engineer. About three months ago, we opened a new level. It was unusually rich in pergium, platinum, uranium, even gold. The whole planet's a treasure house, but I've never seen anything like this before, even here. We were just setting up to mine it when things began to happen. First the automatic machinery began to disintegrate, piece by piece. The metal just seemed to dissolve away. No mystery about the agent; it was aqua regia, possibly with a little hydrofluoric acid mixed in—vicious stuff. We don't store vast quantities of such stuff here, I can tell you that. Offhand I don't even know what we'd keep it in."
    "Teflon," Spock suggested.
    "Yes, but my point is, we don't."
    "You said people were butchered," Kirk reminded him gently.
    "Yes. First our maintenance engineers. Sent them down into the halls to repair the corroded machinery. We found them—burned to a crisp."
    "Not lava, I suppose," Kirk said.
    "There is no current volcanic activity on this planet, Captain," Spock said.
    "He's right. None. It was that same damn acid mixture. At first the deaths were down deep, but they've been moving up toward our levels. The last man who died, three days ago, was only three levels below this one."
    "I'd like to examine his body," McCoy said.
    "We kept it for you—what was left. It isn't pretty."
    The office door opened to admit a tough-looking, squat, businesslike man of middle age, wearing a number one phaser at his belt.
    "You posted guards? Sentries?" Kirk asked.
    "Of course. And five of them have died."
    "Has anyone seen this—this monster of yours?"
    "I did," said the newcomer.
    "This is Ed Appel. Describe it, Ed."
    "I can't. I only got a glimpse of it. It was big, and kind of shaggy. I shot at it, and I hit it square, too, a good clean shot. It didn't even slow it down."
    "Anything a phaser will not affect," Spock said, "has to be an illusion. Any life-form, that is."
    "Tell that to Billy Anderson," Appel said grimly. "He never had a chance. I only got away by the skin of my teeth."
    "That's the story," Vanderberg said. "Nobody'll go down into the lower levels now, and I don't blame them. If the Federation wants pergium from us, they'll have to do something about it."
    "That's what we're here for, Mr. Vanderberg," Kirk said.
    "Pretty tough, aren't you?" said Appel. "Starship, phaser banks, energy from anti-matter, the whole bit. Well, you can't get your starship down into the