"No," I said. "And this of all voyages--"

I checked myself, with thumping heart. My thoughts were so full of what
Halsey and Carter had told us that it was difficult to rein my tongue.
Yet here in the turret, unguarded by insulation, I could say nothing.
Nor would I have dared mention the Grantline Moon Expedition to Dr.
Frank. I wondered what he knew of this affair. Perhaps as much as
I--perhaps nothing.

* * * * *

He was a thin, dark, rather smallish man of fifty, this ship's surgeon,
trim in his blue and white uniform. I knew him well: we had made several
flights together. An American--I fancy of Jewish ancestry. A likable
man, and a skillful doctor and surgeon. He and I had always been good
friends.

"Crowded," he said. "Johnson says thirty-eight. I hope they're
experienced travelers. This pressure sickness is a rotten nuisance--keeps
me dashing around all night assuring frightened women they're not
going to die. Last voyage, coming out of the Venus atmosphere--"

He plunged into a lugubrious account of his troubles with space-sick
voyagers. But I was in no mood to listen. My gaze was down on the spider
incline, up which, over the bend of the ship's sleek, silvery body, the
passengers and their friends were coming in little groups. The upper
deck was already jammed with them.

The Planetara, as flyers go, was not a large vessel. Cylindrical of
body, forty feet maximum beam, and two hundred and seventy-five feet in
overall length. The passenger superstructure--no more than a hundred
feet long--was set amidships. A narrow deck, metallic-enclosed, and with
large bulls-eye windows, encircled the superstructure. Some of the
cabins opened directly onto the deck. Others had doors to the interior
corridors. There were half a dozen small but luxurious public rooms.

* * * * *

The rest of the vessel was given to freight storage and the mechanism
and control compartments. Forward of the passenger structure the
deck level continued under the cylindrical dome-roof to the bow. The
forward watch-tower observatory was here; officers' cabins; Captain
Carter's navigating rooms and Dr. Frank's office. Similarly, under
the stern-dome, was the stern watch-tower and a series of power
compartments.

Above the superstructure a confusion of spider bridges, ladders and
balconies were laced like a metal network. The turret in which Dr. Frank
and I now stood was perche