you!"

He left for Post One, soon after that. Nowadays, it was almost a
miniature of the ever more magnificent--if insecure--Pallastown. He kept
thinking angrily of Art Kuzak, getting a little overstuffed, it seemed.
The hunkie kid, the ex-football player who had become a big commercial
and industrial baron of the Belt. Easy living. Cuties around. And poor
twin Joe--just another stooge...

Nelsen went into the office, his fists clenched overdramatically. "I'm
taking a leave, Art--maybe a long one," he said.

Art Kuzak stared at him. "You damned, independent bums--you, too,
Nelsen!" he began to growl. But when he saw Nelsen's jaw harden, he got
the point, and grinned, instead. "Okay, Frank. Nobody's indispensible. I
might do the same when you come back--who knows...?"

Frank Nelsen joined a KRNH bubb convoy--Earthbound, but also passing
fairly close to Mars--within a few hours.

VII

Frank Nelsen meant the journey to be vagabond escape, an interlude of to
hell with it relief from the grind, and from the increasingly uncertain
mainstream of the things he knew best.

He rode with a long train of bubbs and great sheaves of smelted metal
rods--tungsten, osmium, uranium 238. The sheaves had their own
propelling ionic motors. He lazed like a tramp. He talked with
asteroid-hoppers who meant to spend some time on Earth. Several had
become almost rich. Most had strong, quiet faces that showed both
distance- and home-hunger. A few had broken, and the angry sensitivity
was visible.

Nelsen treated himself well. He was relieved of the duty of eternal
vigilance by men whose job it was. So, for a while, his purpose was
almost successful.

But the memory--or ghost--of Mitch Storey was never quite out of his
mind. And, as a tiny, at first telescopic crescent with a rusty light
enlarged with lessened distance ahead, the ugly enigma of present-day
Mars dug deeper into his brain.

Every twenty-four hours and thirty-eight minutes--the length of the
Martian day--whenever the blue-green wedge of Syrtis Major appeared in
the crescent, he beamed the Survey Station, which was still maintained
for the increase of knowledge, and as a safeguard for incautious
adventurers who will tackle any dangerous mystery or obstacle. His
object was to talk to Nance Codiss.

"I thought perhaps you and your group had gotten restless and had
started out for the Belt already," he laughed during their first
conversation.

"Oh, no--a lab tech