A measure of grim approval was in Miko's
voice. "You evidently have no wish to try and fool me in this
navigation."

I had not, indeed. It is delicate work at best, coping with the
intricacies of celestial mechanics upon a semicircular trajectory with
retarding velocity, and with a make-shift crew we could easily have
come upon real difficulty.

We hung at last, hull-down, facing the Earthward hemisphere of the Lunar
disc. The giant ball of the Earth lay behind and above us--the Sun over
our stern quarter. With forward velocity almost checked, we poised, and
Snap began his signals to the unsuspecting Grantline.

My work momentarily was over. I sat watching the helio-room. Moa was
here, close beside me; I felt always her watchful gaze, so that even the
play of my expression needed reining.

Miko worked with Snap. Anita too was here. To Miko and Moa it was the
somber, taciturn George Prince, shrouded always in his black mourning
cloak, disinclined to talk; sitting alone, brooding and cowardly sullen.

Miko repeated, "By the infernal, if you try to fool me, Snap Dean!"

The small metal room, with its grid floor and low-arched ceiling, glared
with moonlight through its windows. The moving figures of Snap and Miko
were aped by the grotesque, misshapen shadows of them on the walls. Miko
gigantic--a great, menacing ogre. Snap small and alert--a trim, pale
figure in his tight-fitting white trousers, broad-flowing belt, and
white shirt open at the throat. His face was pale and drawn from lack of
sleep and the torture to which Miko had subjected him. But he grinned at
the brigand's words, and pushed his straggling hair closer under the red
eyeshade.

"I'm doing my best, Miko--you can believe it."

* * * * *

The room over long periods was deadly silent, with Miko and Snap bending
watchfully at the crowded banks of instruments. A silence in which my
own pounding heart seemed to echo. I did not dare look at Anita, nor she
at me. Snap was trying to signal Earth, not the Moon! His main helios
were set in the reverse. The infra-red waves, flung from the bow
window, were of a frequency which Snap and I believed that Grantline
could not pick up. And over against the wall, close beside me and
seemingly ignored by Snap, there was a tiny ultra-violet sender. Its
faint hum and the quivering of its mirrors had so far passed unnoticed.

Would some Earth-station pick it up? I prayed so. There was a thu