the present time. However,
I will compromise with you. We can learn much in a month if you will
really try, instead of wasting time in fuming around the ship and
indulging in these idiotic tantrums. If you will buckle down and really
study the problems confronting us for thirty days, we will set out at
the end of that time, ready or not."

"All x. I hate to do it, but we've been together too long to bust it
up now," and Brandon turned toward his bench. Scarcely had he reached
it when a series of dots and dashes roared from an amplifier. Both men
leaped for the receiver which had so unexpectedly burst into sound,
reaching it just as it relapsed into silence, and from the tape of the
recorder they read the brief message.

"...h four seven ganymede point oh four seve...."

"That's Steve!" yelled Brandon. "Nobody else could build an
ultra-sender! Direction?"

"No need of calculating distance or direction. Ganymede is the third
major satellite of Jupiter."

"Sure. Of course, Quince--never thought of that. Dope enough--point oh
four seven."

As Stevens had told Nadia, the message was completely informing to those
for whom it was intended, and soon Brandon's answer was flying toward
the distant satellite. He then started to call the officers of the
Inter-planetary Corporation, but was restrained by his conservative
friend.

"It would be better to wait a while, Norman. In a few hours we will know
what to tell them."

At high acceleration the _Sirius_ drove toward the Jupiter-Earth-North
plane, and Brandon calculated from his own bearings and from the current
issue of the "Ephemeris" the time at which Stevens' reply should be
received. Two minutes before that time he was pacing up and down in
front of the ultra-receiver, and fifteen seconds after it he snapped:

"Come on, Perce, get busy! Shake a leg!"

"Oh, come, Norman; give him a few minutes' leeway, at least," said
Westfall, with amused tolerance. "Even if your calculations are that
accurate--which of course they are," he added hastily at a stormy glance
from hot black eyes, "since we received that message direct, instead of
through one of our relay stations, Stevens probably has been throwing
it around for hours or perhaps days, looking for us, and the shock of
hearing from us at last might well have put him out of control for a
minute or two."

The carrier wave hissed into the receiver, forestalling Brandon's fiery
reply, followed closely by the code signal