plotted. Everything is ready except the iron. Of course the Council
refused to allow us any of the national supply--how much were you able
to purchase for us in the market?"

"Nearly ten pounds...."

"Ten pounds! Why, the securities we left with you could not have bought
two pounds, even at the price then prevailing!"

"No, but you have friends. Many of us believe in you, and have dipped
into our own resources. You and your fellow scientists of the expedition
have each contributed his entire personal fortune; why should not some
of the rest of us also contribute, as private citizens?"

"Wonderful--we thank you. Ten pounds!" The captain's great triangular
eyes glowed with an intense violet light. "A full year of cruising. But
... what if, after all, we should be wrong?"

"In that case you shall have consumed ten pounds of irreplaceable
metal." The Secretary was unmoved. "That is the viewpoint of the Council
and of almost everyone else. It is not the waste of treasure they object
to; it is the fact that ten pounds of iron will be forever lost."

"A high price truly," the Columbus of Nevia assented, "And after all, I
may be wrong."

"You probably are--of course you are wrong," his host made a startling
answer. "It is practically certain--it is almost a demonstrable
mathematical fact--that no other sun within hundreds of thousands of
light-years of our own has a planet. In all probability Nevia is the
only planet in the entire Universe. We are the only intelligent life in
the Universe. But there is one chance in numberless millions that,
somewhere with the cruising range of your newly perfected space-ship,
there may be an iron-bearing planet upon which you can effect a landing,
and it is upon that infinitesimal chance that some of us are staking a
portion of our wealth. We expect no return whatever, but if you _should_
by some miracle happen to find stores of iron somewhere in space, what
then? Deep seas being made shallow, civilization extending itself over
the globe, science advancing by leaps and bounds, Nevia becoming
populated as she should be peopled--that, my friend, is a chance well
worth taking!"

The Secretary called in a group of guards, who escorted the small
package of priceless metal to the space-ship, and before the massive
door was sealed the friends bade each other farewell.

" ... I will keep in touch with you on the ultra-wave," the Captain
concluded. "After all, I do not blame the Council for