The Valley Where Time Stood Still

Mars, a world with a culture ages older than that of Earth, is a dying world, and has been in decline for eons. By the twenty-second century it had become a colony of the younger civilization of Earth, its natives oppressed by the rapacious Colonial Authority.

Encountering each other in the Martian wastes, Terran outcast McCord and Martian warrior Thaklar engage in a wary truce and partnership for the sake of survival. Afterwards they are taken captive by the bandit chief Chastar and pressed into service of an expedition he has taken over. His other captives, the brother-and-sister Swedish archeological team of Karl and Inga Nordgen, have been searching for the legendary valley of Ophar, land of eternal youth, where life on Mars supposedly began; Chastar hopes to gain its treasures for himself.

The party ultimately finds the valley, a prehistoric paradise whose true nature is masked by a protective illusion. There the group fragments, each member falling victim to the valley's uncanny and seemingly judgmental power, a radiation that alters all who enter it in accord with their inner natures. McCord and Thaklar are relatively unchanged, while the victimized Inga and hard-bitten Zerild, a renegade dancer allied with the bandits, recover their innocence. The evil Chastar and abusive Karl, however, are regressed into monsters.

Freed from their captors, the Terran and Martian protagonists leave the valley and go their separate ways, McCord paired with Inga and Thaklar with Zerild.

In both publication and chronological order, this is the second story in the series; it was published between The Man Who Loved Mars and "The Martian El Dorado of Parker Whitley," but in terms of events it follows the latter and precedes The City Outside the World.^[1]