?"

"We'll have to eat 'em and see," he grinned. "I don't imagine that any
flesh is really poisonous, and we'll have to arrive at the ones we like
best by a process of trial and error. Well, here's your job--I'll get
busy on mine. Don't go more than a few hundred meters away and yell if
you get into a jam."

"There's a couple of questions I want to ask you. What makes it so
warm here, when the sun's so far away and Jupiter isn't supposed to be
radiating any heat? And how about time? It's twelve hours by my watch
since sunrise this morning, and it's still shining."

"As for heat, I've been wondering about that. It must be due to internal
heat, because even though Jupiter may be warm, or even hot, it certainly
isn't radiating much, since it has a temperature of minus two hundred at
the visible surface, which, of course, is the top of the atmosphere. Our
heat here is probably caused by radioactivity--that's the most modern
dope, I believe. As for time, it looks as though our days were something
better than thirty hours long, instead of twenty-four. Of course I'll
keep the chronometer going on I-P time, since we'll probably need it in
working out observations; but we might as well let our watches run down
and work, eat, and sleep by the sun--not much sense in trying to keep
Tellurian time here, as I see it. Check?"

"All x. I'll have supper ready for you at sunset. 'Bye!"

A few evenings later, when Stevens came in after his long day's work,
he was surprised to see Nadia dressed in a suit of brown coveralls and
high-laced moccasins.

"How do I look?" she asked, pirouetting gayly.

"Neat, but not gaudy," he approved. "That's good mole-skin--smooth,
soft, and tough. Where'd you make the raise? I didn't know we had
anything like that on board. What did you do for thread? You look like
a million dollars--you sure did a good job of fitting."

"I had to have something--what with all the thorns and brush, there was
almost more of me exposed than covered, and I was getting scratched up
something fierce. So I ripped up one of the space-suits, and found out
that there's enough cloth, fur, and leather in one of them to make six
ordinary suits, and thread by the kilometer. I was awfully glad to see
all that thread--I had an idea that I'd have to unravel my stockings or
something, but I didn't. Your clothes are getting pretty tacky, too, and
you're getting all burned with those hot coals and things. I'm going to
build you a sui