use Norris says we must go on until we find
animal life."

He cleared his throat and gazed at the feminine faces before him. "Go
where? What makes Norris so sure he'll find life on any planet in this
system? And incidentally where in the cosmos is this system?"

One of the women, a tall blonde, stirred uneasily. "What do you mean?"
she said.

"I mean we don't know if our last landing was on Stragella or Coulora. I
mean we don't know where we are or where we're going, and I don't think
Norris does either. _We're lost!_"

That was in August. By the last of September we had landed on two more
planets, to which Norris gave the simple names of R-12 and R-14. Each
had crude forms of vegetable life, represented principally by the blue
_hensorr_ trees, but in neither case did the organic surveyor reveal the
slightest traces of animal life.

There was, however, a considerable difference in physical appearance
between R-12 and R-14, and for a time that fact excited Norris
tremendously. Up to then, each successive planet, although similar in
size, had exhibited signs of greater age than its predecessor. But on
R-12 there were definite manifestations of younger geologic development.

Several pieces of shale lay exposed under a fold of igneous rock. Two of
those pieces contained fossils of highly developed _ganoids_, similar to
those found on Venus. They were perfectly preserved.

It meant that animal life had existed on R-12, even if it didn't now. It
meant that R-12, though a much older planet than Earth, was still
younger than Stragella or the rest.

For a while Norris was almost beside himself. He cut out rock samples
and carried them back to the ship. He personally supervised the tuning
of the surveyors. And when he finally gave orders to take off, he was
almost friendly to Mason, whereas before his attitude toward him had
been one of cold aloofness.

But when we reached R-14, our eighth landing, all that passed. For R-14
was old again, older than any of the others.

And then, on October sixteenth, Mason opened the door of the locked
cabin. It happened quite by accident. One of the _arelium-thaxide_
conduits broke in the _Marie Galante's_ central passageway, and the
resulting explosion grounded the central feed line of the instrument
equipment. In a trice the passageway was a sheet of flame, rapidly
filling with smoke from burning insulation.

Norris, of course, was in the bridge cuddy with locked doors between us