own
again. It was obviously enjoying the chase.

"This could go on forever," Mallory groaned, sticking his foot in his
mouth again.

Lahoma ignored the opening.

"It's obvious what we must do," she said, sounding quite capable.
"Tillie needs a little advice on love making. I'm quite sure that Oscar,
or whatever his name is, would pursue Tillie if she stopped CHASING him.
We've got to convince her of that and get her to try it."

Evidently she didn't need convincing. She got the idea direct from
Lahoma and acted on it. The silver flash ahead swung away. Half an hour
later it showed up in the stern telescope.

This seemed to delight Tillie, the tellecarbon, no end. She cavorted
about like a drunken puppy, giving us all a bad case of sea sickness.

"Now," Lahoma gasped. "We must coax Tillie into setting us back on
Earth. I don't know how you men feel, but I would be quite willing to
turn Tillie loose so she could join her mate--once we were safely home."

"But if we did that we wouldn't be able to explore the Solar System!"
Jud exclaimed.

"And if we don't we'll probably wind up flattened against some asteroid
as soon as Tillie decides to break out of her shell," Lahoma snapped.

I blanched at the thought. Mallory's knees buckled and he sat down on
the floor weakly. Jud himself swayed a little.

That eventuality just hadn't occurred to us before. Obviously Tillie
would get tired of the chase and want to settle down and get cozy some
day. If she hadn't acquired the idea from us she might figure it out by
herself and dash us against some jagged bit of space rock.

"All right. All right," Jud said weakly. "Let's see if we can talk
Tillie into taking us back home in exchange for her freedom. As an
arguing point you might all visualize the smashed ship, with her still
imprisoned and all of us dead and unable to help free her."

An invisible hand seemed to push us to the back of the ship. We were
picking up speed faster than we ever had before.

[Illustration: The blob of metal clung to the space ship's trail like a
pursuing nemesis.]

I slowly climbed to the forward telescope and looked through it. Dead
center was a small twinkling Earth with the Moon hovering near it.

I informed the rest. They shouted with relief. We were on our way home!

The stern telescope showed the other piece of tellecarbon following
us--almost sniffing at our heels. It held there, day after day, while
the Earth grew larger and larger