n the heart of the ship. Clyde had his way, and he
and Burl shared a double-decker chamber.

There was a hustle and bustle in the valley. The supplies seemed
unending, and Burl wondered why the variety. "For once, we've got
lifting power to spare," was Russ's comment. "Nobody knows what we're
going to need on the various planets, so Lockhart is simply piling
aboard everything he can think of. You'd be amazed at the space we have
for storage. And Caton says that the more we stick in there, the better
the shielding is against the radiation belt surrounding Earth--and
probably the other planets as well."

"I thought we were already well protected," said Burl. "With the atomic
generators, we had to be shielded anyway. Haven't we lead lining all
around our inner sphere quarters?"

Russell Clyde nodded. "Oh, sure, but the more the merrier."

He and Burl were already in their quarters, stowing their clothes. "We
leave in an hour," said Burl. "Are we going to the launching base at
Boothia, where the manned rockets go up?"

Clyde shook his head. "Lockhart talked it over with us yesterday, and we
decided to take off from right here." By "us," Burl knew the operational
group was meant, which consisted of the colonel, the two astronomers,
Caton as head of the engineering section, and Haines, "To tell the
truth, nobody knows how easily this ship will handle. We're shielded
well enough so that a short passage through the radiation belt three
hundred miles up and for the next fifteen hundred miles shouldn't have
any effect on us at all. The rockets, which can't be shielded because of
the weight limitations, have to go up at Boothia because there, at the
North Magnetic Pole, there's a hole in the radiation."

Boothia Peninsula was a barren spot far up in the Arctic Zone on
Canada's frozen eastern coast. On it was constructed the world's major
space port--a lonely outpost from which rockets departed for the equally
lonely Moon bases. Burl had read about it and had looked forward to
seeing it, but realized that the flight of the _Magellan_ marked still
another change in the fast-altering history of the conquest of space.

The hour passed quickly. The little valley was cleared of visitors. The
crew was called to take-off posts--Lockhart at the controls, Clyde and
Oberfield at the charts, Detmar watching the energy output. The rest of
the crew had been strapped into their bunks. By special request, Burl
was observing in the control