d promptly, "Fine; that will go good one of these days." All
this for the benefit of listening ears. Yet even Chet would have been
astonished to know that he would be using that ship within an hour....

* * * * *

He was standing at the window, and his mind was filled, not with
thoughts of any complications that had developed for his friend
Harkness, but only of the adventures that lay ahead of them both. The
Dark Moon!--they had reached it, indeed; but they had barely scratched
the surface of that world of mystery and adventure. He was wild with
eagerness to return--to see again that new world, blazing brightly
beneath the sun; to see the valley of fires--and he had a score to
settle with the tribe of ape-men, unless Harkness had finished them off
while he, himself, lay unconscious.... Yes, there seemed little doubt of
that; Walt would have paid the score for all of them.... He seemed
actually back in that world to which his thoughts went winging across
the depths of space. The buzz of a telephone recalled him.

It was the hospital office, he found, when he answered. There was a
message--would Mr. Bullard kindly receive it on the telautotype--lever
number four, and dial fifteen-point-two--thanks.... And Chet depressed a
key and adjusted the instrument that had been printing the newscast.

The paper moved on beneath the glass, and the type-bars clicked more
slowly now. From some distant station that might be anywhere on or above
the earth, there was coming a message.

The frequency of that sending current was changed at some central
office; it was stepped down to suit the instrument beside him. And the
type was spelling out words that made the watching man breathless and
intent--until he tore off the paper and leaped for the call signal that
would summon the nurse. Through her he would get his own clothes, his
uniform, the triple star that showed his rating and his authority in
every air-level of the world.

That badge would have got him immediate attention on any landing field.
Now, on the flat roof, with steady, gray eyes and a voice whose very
quietness accentuated its imperative commands, Chet had the staff of the
hospital hangars as alert as if their alarm had sounded a general
ambulance call.

* * * * *

Straight into the sky a red beacon made a rigid column of light; a radio
sender was crackling a warning and a demand for "clear air." From the