ship increased. Atomic blasts replaced those of the
regular fuel. Sessions knew that an Earth measurement would have shown the
ship to have shrunk to half its size. Only light and the radona beam which
protected the ship from collisions could travel faster.

From now on it was just a matter of luck. Someone had pulled those six
explorers out of space and Sessions was hoping the same thing would happen
to him. On the third day it happened.

He was sitting in the pilot's chair, watching the radona chart before him.
Most of the chart was blank, only the upper right hand corner showing a
mass of black dots which indicated a planetary dispersal about a dead star.
Sessions waited for the radona beam to swing the ship leftward.

Instead, the ship was curving in the direction of the dots! Ben's first
thought was that the beam had gone out of order, and he switched to manual
controls. No use. Despite all his efforts he was being carried toward those
planets.

Habit made him shut off the tubes. Why waste fuel? A tight smile froze on
his lips as his speed dropped to twenty million miles then lifted again as
the ship by-passed a planet. With calm deliberation Ben switched on the
camera he had installed before the flight and let it record his course as
shown on the radona chart.

Only one dot remained on the chart. It grew larger and larger until it
filled the entire screen. There was no longer any doubt as to the ship's
destination, and as if to add further proof its speed dropped sharply. Ben
clicked the switch on the camera and removed a tiny roll of microfilm. The
roll fit snugly into the hollow cap which covered the stub of one of his
molars.

The altitude indicator went on automatically, showed fifty thousand feet,
then forty thousand, went down to hundreds. Ahead there was only blackness.
Ben held his breath and waited for the crash. It never came. Long after the
altimeter showed zero the ship still moved. Ben could think of only one
explanation: he was below the surface of the dark planet! And then he could
think no more; the blackness seemed to filter into the ship and into his
mind.

* * * * *

"He awakens," a voice said. It was a pleasant voice, a feminine one, silky
and soothing.

Ben Sessions sat up and said, "Huh?"

The first thing he noticed was the light. No more darkness, but a light
that came from nowhere and yet was everywhere. He was on some sort of
couch, in a huge room