ething else, son."

"What?"

Pink said slowly, futilely, "I don't know." He patted the O.O.'s
shoulder. "Keep at it, Jerry." He went out and walked down the long ramp
to the astrolab. Daley was there. "How's it going?" Pink asked him.

"We aren't moving," said the lieutenant.

"I know. I told Kinkare to put her into the same orbit as the asteroid
belt. We want to stay in the same relation to the planetoids till we
decide where to look for Fawcett."

"I know you issued those orders, Pink. I meant we aren't in the orbit.
We're hanging in space, and the dang asteroids are shooting past us."
Daley flipped on his great banks of scanners. "See?" Bands of light were
tiny balls of inert matter, flashing by an obviously stationary
_Elephant's Child_.

Pink jumped for the intercom. "No use," said Daley. "It's dead. I sent
Calico for Randy Kinkare." They looked at each other. "I think it's
Ynohp," said Daley.

Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without
admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a
number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago
in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to
reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done
it--if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet
per second."

"Maybe he can."

"You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as
Terrestrians."

"And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?"

"Washington, did you ever see a Martian?"

"Yeah."

"Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall,
four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?"

"I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety
that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other
facts could explain it."

Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run.

Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly.

The space drive was out of commission.

They were adrift in the void.

CHAPTER IV

The intercom, the space drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one
man _couldn't_ have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way
with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley,
Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the
Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once.

And out of the hubbub, one clear sweet voice saying something that
didn't make se