red and fifty thousand feet I shifted the gravity plates to the
landing combinations, and started the electronic engines.

"All safe, Gregg?" Moa sat at my elbow; her eyes, with what seemed a
glow of admiration in them, followed my busy routine activities.

"Yes. The crew works well."

The electronic streams flowed out like a rocket tail behind us. The
_Planetara_ caught their impetus. In the rarified air, our bow lifted
slightly, like a ship riding a gentle ground swell. At a hundred
thousand feet we sailed gently forward, hull down to the asteroid's
surface, cruising to seek a landing space.

A little sea was now beneath us. A shadowed sea, deep purple in the
night down there. Occasional green-verdured islands showed, with the
lines of white surf marking them. Beyond the sea, a curving coastline
was visible. Rocky headlines, behind which mountain foothills rose in
serrated, verdured ranks. The sunlight edged the distant mountains; and
presently this rapidly turning little world brought the sunlight
forward.

* * * * *

It was day beneath us. We slid gently downward. Thirty thousand feet
now, above a sparkling blue ocean. The coastline was just ahead: green
with a lush, tropical vegetation. Giant trees, huge-leaved. Long
dangling vines; air plants, with giant pods and vivid orchidlike
blossoms.

I sat at the turret window, staring through my glasses. A fair little
world, yet obviously uninhabited. I could fancy that all this was
newly-sprung vegetation. This asteroid had whirled in from the cold of
the interplanetary space far outside our Solar System. A few years
ago--as time might be measured astronomically, it was no more than
yesterday--this fair landscape was congealed white and bleak, with a
sweep of glacial ice. But the seeds of life miraculously were here. The
miracle of life! Under the warming, germinating sunlight, the verdure
sprung.

"Can you find landing space, Gregg?"

Moa's question brought back my wandering fancies. I saw an upland glade,
a level spread of ferns with the forest banked around it. A cliff-height
nearby, frowning down at the sea.

"Yes. I can land us there." I showed her through the glasses. I rang the
sirens, and we spiraled, descending further. The mountain tops were now
close beneath us. Clouds were overhead, white masses with blue sky
behind them. A day of brilliant sunlight. But soon, with our forward
cruising, it was night. The sunlight dro