n do find you, get on the landing boat radio and
yell for help. We'll come blasting."

He waved a hand, thumb and forefinger held together in the ancient symbol
for "everything right," then ordered, "Get flaming." He stepped through
the valve.

"Clear the lock," Rip ordered. "Open outer valve when ready."

[Illustration: "Get Flaming, Foster!"]

"Get Flaming, Foster!"

He took a quick final look around. The pilots were in the boats. His
Planeteers were standing by, safety lines already attached to the boats
and their belts. He moved into position and snapped his own line to a ring
on Dowst's boat. The spacemen vanished through the valve and the massive
door slid closed. The overhead lights flicked out. Rip snapped on his belt
light and the others followed suit.

In front of the boxlike landing boats a great door slid open and air from
the lock rushed out. Rip knew it was only imagination, but he felt for a
moment as though the bitter cold of space, near absolute zero, had
penetrated his suit. Beyond the lights from their belts he saw stars, and
recognized the constellation for which the space cruiser was named. A
superstitious spaceman would have taken that as a good sign. Rip admitted
that it was nice to see.

"Float 'em," he ordered.

The Planeteers gripped handholds at the entrance with one hand and
launching rails on the boats with the other and heaved. The boats slid
into space. As the safety lines tightened, the Planeteers were pulled
after the boat.

Rip left his feet with a little spring and shot through the door. Directly
below him the asteroid gleamed darkly in the light of the tiny sun. His
first reaction was, "Great Cosmos! What a little chunk of rock!" But that
was because he was used to looking from the space platform at the great
curve of Terra or at the big ball of the moon. Actually the asteroid was
fair-sized when compared with most of its kind.

The Planeteers hauled themselves into the boats by their safety lines. Rip
waited until all were in, then pulled himself along his own line to the
black square oL the door. Koa was waiting to give him a hand into the
craft.

The Planeteers were standing, except for Dowst. Rip had never seen an
old-type railroad or he might have likened the landing boat to a railroad
box car. It was about the same size and shape, but it had huge "windows"
on both sides and in front of the pilot--windows that were not en