ders the Special Patrol Service had ever had, and I
recognized Correy's symptoms in a twinkling.

"We'll be re-outfitting at the Arpan sub-base in a couple of days," I
said carelessly. "Give us a chance to stretch our legs. Have you seen
anything of the liner that spoke to us yesterday?" I was just making
conversation, to get his mind out of its unhealthy channel.

"The _Kabit_? Yes, sir; we passed her early this morning, lumbering
along like the big fat pig that she is." A pig, I should explain, is a
food animal of Earth; a fat and ill-looking creature of low
intelligence. "The old _Ertak_ went by her as though she were standing
still. She'll be a week and more arriving at Arpan. Look: you can just
barely make her out on the charts."

I glanced down at the twin charts Correy had indicated. In the center of
each the red spark that represented the _Ertak_ glowed like a coal of
fire; all around were the green pinpricks of light that showed the
position of other bodies around us. The _Kabit_, while comparatively
close, was just barely visible; her bulk was so small that it only
faintly activated the super-radio reflex plates upon the ship's hull.

"We're showing her a pretty pair of heels," I nodded, studying our
position in both dimensions. "Arpan isn't registering yet, I see. Who's
this over here; Hydrot?"

"Right, sir," replied Correy. "Most useless world in the Universe, I
guess. No good even for an emergency base."

"She's not very valuable, certainly," I admitted. "Just a ball of water
whirling through space. But she does serve one good purpose; she's a
sign-post it's impossible to mistake." Idly, I picked up Hydrot in the
television disk, gradually increasing the size of the image until I had
her full in the field, at maximum magnification.

* * * * *

Hydrot was a sizable sphere, somewhat larger than Earth--my natural
standard of comparison--and utterly devoid of visible land. She was, as
I had said, just a ball of water, swinging along uselessly through
space, although no doubt there was land of some kind under that vast,
unending stretch of gray water, for various observers had reported, in
times past, bursts of volcanic steam issuing from the water.

Indeed, as I looked, I saw one such jet of steam, shooting into space
from a spot not far from the equator of the strange world. In the
television disk, it looked like a tiny wisp of white, barely visible
against the gray wat