pped beneath the sharply convex
horizon; the sea and the land went purple.

A night of brilliant stars; the Earth was a blazing blue-red point of
light. The heavens visibly were revolving; in an hour or so it would be
daylight again.

On the forward deck now Coniston had appeared, commanding half a dozen
of the crew. They were carrying up caskets of food and the equipment
which was to be given the marooned passengers. And making ready the
disembarking incline, loosening the seals of the side-dome windows.

Sternward on the deck, by the lounge oval, I could see Miko standing.
And occasionally the roar of his voice at the passengers sounded.

* * * * *

My vagrant thought flung back into Earth's history. Like this, ancient
travelers of the surface of the sea were herded by pirates to walk the
plank, or put ashore, marooned upon some fair desert island of the
tropic Spanish main.

Hahn came mounting our turret incline. "All is well, Gregg Haljan?"

"Get to your work," Moa told him sharply. "We land in an hour-quadrant."

He retreated, joining the bustle and confusion which now was beginning
on the deck. It struck me--could I turn that confusion to account? Would
it be possible, now at the last moment, to attack these brigands? Snap
still sat outside the helio-room doorway. But his guard was alert, with
upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his position high
amidships, commanded all the deck.

And I saw too, as the passengers now were herded in a line from the
lounge oval, that Miko had roped and bound all of the men. And a
clanking chain connected them. They came like a line of convicts,
marching forward, and stopped on the open deck-space near the base of
the turret. Dr. Frank's grim face gazed up at me.

Miko ordered the women and children in a group beside the chained men.
His words to them reached me: "You are in no danger. When we land, be
careful. You will find gravity very different--this is a very small
world."

I flung on the landing lights; the deck glowed with the blue radiance;
the search-beams shot down beside our hull. We hung now a thousand feet
above the forest glade. I cut off the electronic streams. We poised,
with the gravity-plates set at normal, and only a gentle night-breeze to
give us a slight side drift. This I could control with the lateral
propeller rudders.

For all my busy landing routine, my mind was on other things. Venza's
swift words back