won't be with you--no use making it look as though we were doing
anything unusual. If your graphs show anything--or if Snap picks up any
message--bring it to me." He added aloud, "Well, it will be cool enough
presently, Gregg."

He sauntered away toward his chart-room.

"By heavens, what a relief!" Snap murmured as the current went on. We
had wired his cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could at
last talk with a degree of freedom.

"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"

"No. He's assigned A 20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever
mentioned--"

Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for this
voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl
to have a brother like that."

I could agree with him there, but I made no comment.

* * * * *

It was now 6 A. M. Snap had been busy all night with routine cosmo-radios
from the earth, following our departure. He had a pile of them beside
him. Many were for the passengers; but anything that savored of a code
was barred.

"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.

"No. Not a thing."

We were at this time no more than some sixty-five thousand miles from
the moon's surface. The Planetara presently would swing upon her direct
course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger comment
in this close passing of the moon; normally we used the satellite's
attraction to give us additional starting speed.

It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was
supposed to be upon this earthward side of the moon. While Snap had
rushed through with his routine, I had searched the moon surface with
our glass, as I knew Carter was searching it--and also the observer in
his tower, very possibly.

But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The
heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas
were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding
desolation, this unchanging moon! In romance, moonlight may shimmer and
sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the moon is cold
and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the intrepid
Grantline might be.

"Nothing at all, Snap."

And Snap's helio mirrors, attuned for an hour now to pick up the
faintest signal, were motionless.

"If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of radio-active ore,"
said Snap, "we should get an impulse from its Gam