urgently, "Remember what Ynohp said about his
cataleptic state? 'Moth and rust do not corrupt.' He said it as if it
were a quotation."

"It is," said Daley. "More or less word for word it's from the King
James version of the Bible."

"Dated, if I remember correctly, about 1611 A.D.?"

"Yes."

"At which date the Martians had been without space flight for about
3,600 years. At which date, further, Ynohp claims to have been sitting
on an asteroid for about 4,000-plus years."

"Coincidence?" asked Jerry.

Pink asked, "Do you think so?"

"Hell," said Jerry, "no."

"Let's go look at his space suit," said Daley urgently. They ran down
the corridor, shoving for the lead.

Ten minutes later they sat back on their heels and stared at the
interior of the suit.

Rust had corrupted here, or at any rate decay; the Martian steel,
ancient and harder than any known metal, was worn to a papery shell, and
in many places tiny holes had eroded clear through the suit.

"No man or Martian or anything I know except the space-eating bacteria
of Pallas could have lived in that suit, cataleptic state or not." Pink
looked around at his friends. "_What in the name of heaven have we
brought into the ship?_"

Then the three were racing for the "Martian's" stateroom. They burst in,
and found that now it was empty of life.

They stood, indecisive, just outside. Pinkham's gaze went to the door,
on which, as was the custom, a hastily-printed card had been placed with
the officer's name upon it. He read it. Then he blinked.

"Look," he said, gesturing.

"What about it?"

The card blared its secret, its pun, at them.

Y N O H P.

"Read it backwards," said Pinkham....

CHAPTER V

"None of you thought to look at the Martian spacesuit when we'd removed
it?" asked Pink. The others shook their heads. They were all in his
quarters again.

"Neither did you, Captain," said Joe Silver. "You were as busy looking
at the Martian as we were."

"True enough," admitted Pinkham. "Well, the thing to do first is radio
the _Diogenes_ and the _Cottabus_ to stand by for trouble." He lit a
cigarette. "If the radio hasn't been tampered with," he said. "Silver,
go tell Sparks to start sending to them. _Diogenes_ is down by Planet
Five, and _Cottabus_ heading for Four. Tell them to look for us
somewhere in the planetoid orbit. They'll have to come in on the radio
beam. I don't suppose we can expect them for a day." Joe Silver gave
Circe's ar