, always the scientist whose science was one of exactness,
tried to estimate just where, on the Earth's surface, the glow was.

"Jaska," he said again, "that glow comes out of the heart of the Gens area
which Dalis ruled! And no one lives there, since Dalis' Gens flew out to do
battle! That's why we did not know of it before we left! That glow,
somehow, beloved, is the cause of the outward-from-the-Earth journey of the
Moon! First we must locate the Moon-source of the glow, and render it
incapable of further forcing itself away! For do you realize that, unless
we do so, we will never again see home?"

Jaska said nothing, but her eyes were troubled for a moment. Then she
smiled again.

"What care I if I become a prisoner on the Moon, if you are with me?"

Sarka was just now realizing the wonder of this raven-haired woman
whom, knowing her for half a century as he had, he had just known so
little after all.

"If we seem in danger of discovery, Jaska," he said to her, "drop down
instantly into the ashes, for if we are discovered by Dalis...."

He left it there and, with a deep intake of breath, started away for
the nearest and highest hill. They desired to walk, yet found walking
almost impossible, as they could not keep their feet on the ground
save by the exercise of a really incredible effort of will. So,
despairing of keeping their feet in contact with the ashes, they flew
just above them, heading for the nearest weird-looking ridge.

* * * * *

In the strange light, which was oddly like moonlight in some painted
desert of Earth, shapes were distorted and somehow menacing, colors
were raw, almost bleeding--and distances that seemed but a step
required hours to traverse.

Ever and anon, as they traveled they looked back up at the Earth which
was their home. It still was visible, though plainly smaller with
distance, and for a time Sarka's heart misgave him; but he only
clasped tighter the hand of Jaska and moved on.

They were just at the base of the first hill, which had now become a
mountain of gloomy, forbidding aspect, when the first sound they had
heard on the moon came to them. A sound that was a commingling of the
laughter of Dalis, the barking of jackals of the olden times, the
humming of a million Beryls revolving at top speed, and a strident
buzzing such as neither had ever heard.

Had they been discovered? Was the sound a warning? They could not
know; but as they st