tion. This asteroid had whirled in from the cold of
the interplanetary space, far outside our solar system. A few years
ago--as time might be measured astronomically, it was no more than
yesterday--this fair landscape was congealed white and bleak with a
sweep of glacial ice. But the seeds of life miraculously were here.
The miracle of life! Under the warming, germinating sunlight, the
verdure had sprung.

"Can you find landing space, Gregg?" Moa's question brought back my
wandering fancies. I saw an upland glade, a level spread of ferns with
the forest banked around it. A cliff height nearby, frowning down at
the sea.

"Yes. I can land us there." I showed her through the glasses. I rang
the sirens, and we spiraled, descending further. The mountain tops
were now close beneath us. Clouds were overhead, white masses with
blue sky behind them. A day of brilliant sunlight. But soon, with our
forward cruising, it was night. The sunlight dropped beneath the
sharply convex horizon; the sea and the land went purple.

A night of brilliant stars; the Earth was a blazing blue-red point of
light. The heavens visibly were revolving; in an hour or so it would
be daylight again.

On the forward deck now Coniston had appeared, commanding half a dozen
of the crew. They were carrying up caskets of food and the equipment
which was to be given the marooned passengers. And making ready the
disembarking incline, loosening the seals of the side dome windows.

Sternward on the deck, by the lounge oval, I could see Miko standing.
And occasionally the roar of his voice at the passengers, sounded.

My vagrant thoughts flung back into Earth's history. Like this,
ancient travelers of the surface of the sea were herded by pirates to
walk the plank, or be put ashore, marooned upon some fair desert
island of the tropic Spanish main.

Hahn came mounting our turret incline. "All is well, Gregg Haljan?"

"Get to your work," Moa told him sharply.

He retreated, joining the bustle and confusion which now was beginning
on the deck. It struck me--could I turn that confusion to account?
Would it be possible, now at the last moment, to attack these
brigands? Snap still sat outside the radio room doorway. But his guard
was alert with upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his
position, commanded all the deck.

And I saw too, as the passengers now were herded in a line from the
lounge oval, that Miko had roped and bound all of the men, a clank