cause if you don't, _you'll_ be in irons, and we'll see just
how long you last when you get back home. Now you've got your orders.
You'll board the ship with Brownie."

The big man's fists were clenched until the knuckles were white. "You
don't know what's over there!" he burst out. "We could be slaughtered."

The captain's smile was unpleasant. "That would be such a pity," he
murmured. "I'd really hate to see it happen--"

* * * * *

The ship hung dark and silent, like a shadowy ghost. No flicker of light
could be seen aboard it; no sound nor faintest sign of life came from
the tall, dark hull plates. It hung there, huge and imponderable, and
swung around with the Station in its silent orbit.

The men huddled about Sabo and Brownie, helping them into their pressure
suits, checking their equipment. They had watched the little scanning
beetles crawl over the surface of the great ship, examining, probing
every nook and crevice, reporting crystals, and metals, and irons, while
the boarding party prepared. And still the radioman waited alertly for a
flicker of life from the solemn giant.

Frightened as they were of their part in the illegal secrecy, the
arrival of the ship had brought a change in the crew, lighting fires of
excitement in their eyes. They moved faster, their voices were lighter,
more cheerful. Long months on the Station had worn on their nerves--out
of contact with their homes, on a mission that was secretly jeered as
utter Governmental folly. Ships _had_ been seen, years before,
disappearing into the sullen bright atmospheric crust of Saturn, but
there had been no sign of anything since. And out there, on the lonely
guard Station, nerves had run ragged, always waiting, always watching,
wearing away even the iron discipline of their military background. They
grew bitterly weary of the same faces, the same routine, the constant
repetition of inactivity. And through the months they had watched with
increasing anxiety the conflict growing between the captain and his
bitter, sullen-eyed second-in-command, John Sabo.

And then the ship had come, incredibly, from the depths of space, and
the tensions of loneliness were forgotten in the flurry of activity. The
locks whined and opened as the two men moved out of the Station on the
little propulsion sleds, linked to the Station with light silk guy
ropes. Sabo settled himself on the sled, cursing himself for falling so
foolishly i