my
dreams.

I turned away. And thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at
me. George Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been told to watch.
This renegade--associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.

* * * * *

I saw, upon the adjoining door, "A 20, _George Prince_." I listened. In
the humming stillness of the ship's interior there was no sound from
these cabins. A 20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a
window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge,
out its arch, and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of
A 22 were closed and dark.

The ten-foot-wide deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports.
Chairs were here, but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the
arching dome a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the
deck. At the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a
figure lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.

I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side. There
was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high in the
bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret balcony
almost directly over me.

As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the direction
of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.

He greeted me. "Cooling off, Gregg?"

"Yes," I said.

He went past me and turned into the smoking room door nearby.

I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and
for no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one for
his regular sleep--it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about the ship
at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself it was nonsense.
I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.

* * * * *

I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart-room which
stood in the center of the narrowing open deck space near the bow. I
joined him at once.

"Who was that?" he half-whispered.

"Johnson."

"Oh, yes." He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck.
"Gregg--take this." He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at once
into my shirt.

"An insulator," he added, swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it to
him, Gregg. Stay with him--you'll have a measure of security--and you
can help him to make the photographs." He was barely whispering. "I