mb nail
mirror here which could bring an answer. I prayed that it might swing.

Would some Earth telescope be able to see us? I doubted it. The pinpoint
of the _Planetara's_ infinitesimal bulk would be beyond them.

Long silences, broken only by the faint hiss and murmur of Snap's
instruments.

"Shall I try the 'graphs, Miko?"

"Yes."

I helped him with the spectroheliograph. At every level the plates
showed us nothing save the scarred and pitted Moon-surface. We worked
for an hour. There was nothing. Bleak cold night on the Moon here
beneath us. A touch of fading sunlight upon the Apennines. Up near the
South Pole, Tycho with its radiating open rills stood like a grim dark
maw.

Miko bent over a plate. "Something here? Is there?"

An abnormality upon the frowning ragged cliffs of Tycho? We thought so.
But then it seemed not.

* * * * *

Another hour. No signal came from Earth. If Snap's calls were getting
through we had no evidence of it. Abruptly Miko strode at me from across
the room. I went cold and tense; Moa shifted, alert to my every
movement. But Miko was not interested in me. A sweep of his clenched
fist knocked the ultra-violet sender and its coils and mirrors in a
tinkling crash to the grid at my feet.

"We don't need that, whatever it is!"

He rubbed his knuckles where the violet waves had tinged them, and
turned grimly back to Snap.

"Where are your Gamma ray mirrors? If the treasure is exposed--"

This Martian's knowledge was far greater than we believed. He grinned
sardonically at Anita. "If our treasure is on this hemisphere, Prince,
we should pick up Gamma rays? Don't you think so? Or is Grantline so
cautious it will all be protected?"

Anita spoke in a careful, throaty drawl. "The Gamma rays came plain
enough when we passed here on the way out."

"You should know," grinned Miko. "An expert eavesdropper, Prince--I will
say that for you. Come Dean, try something else. By God, if Grantline
does not signal us, I will be likely to blame you--my patience is
shortening. Shall we go closer, Haljan?"

"I don't think it would help," I said.

He nodded. "Perhaps not. Are we checked?"

"Yes." We were poised, very nearly motionless. "If you wish an advance,
I can ring it. But we need a surface destination now."

"True, Haljan." He stood thinking. "Would a zed-ray penetrate those
crater-cliffs? Tycho, for instance, at this angle?"[B]

"It might," Snap agreed.