shock, he knew, and helped you over the rough spots.
"I'm Lt. Washington Daley and you are--"

"Organicus Officer Circe Smith, of Colonel Fawcett's exploratory
armada," she said automatically.

"Fawcett!" said everyone, loudly and with amazement.

"So he got to System Ninety," said Pink. "Every spaceman on the ways has
wondered about Fawcett for eighteen years. He vanished with two ships--"

"She knows that, Captain," said Daley.

"Oh. Of course."

"Our other ship was still okay when we broke up," said O. O. Smith,
brushing her short hair back from a forehead that was wide and
intelligent. "My crest radio was on the fritz, but Fawcett's was all
right and he was supposed to call Commander Dyevis, who was cruising
down by Planet Four. At least half a dozen of us got off in Slugjet
Suits before the ship died. I guess his message never got to Dyevis."

"Lord knows," said Pinkham. The _Elephant's Child_ shivered slightly as
her recoil engines stopped her. Jerry came over from the controls.

"There's another one sitting outside," he said casually.

"Maybe it's Colonel Fawcett," the girl cried eagerly.

Jerry shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He looked at her a moment, then
turned to Pinkham. "This one has four arms," he said.

CHAPTER III

They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the _Elephant's Child_,
eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm and
the frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O.
Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohp
of the extinct Martian Space Navy.

"If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp was
saying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter on
his chest--a tiny box which could be set to change any of nine thousand
spoken languages into any one of the others--"and at that time my people
had lost the secrets of space travel for approximately four thousand
years, this means that I have been reclining on a planetoid here for at
least 4,100 years. The probability is that it has been much longer.
Unfortunately my time recorder has long since become inoperative."

He extended one of his four rib appendages and picked up a piece of
carrot. "Naturally I was in a cataleptic state," he went on. "As you may
know, in my race that means that all body processes are suspended _in
toto_. There is no growth and no decay. Moth and rust do not corrupt,
you might put it."