up! We're alive, we've got everything we wanted, and we're
hitting at full speed for Earth! And you know the luck of that
space-adventurer they call the Hawk!"

Leithgow smiled gently in answer, then left the cabin for the sleep he
needed so badly. Hawk Carse was left alone on watch in the fleeing
_Sandra_.

A lonely, intent figure, he stood over the chart-table, working out
their best course to Earth. Presently, however, he went back to the
infra-red electelscope and swept it over the leagues behind. Carse
could not detect any sign of the asteroid, but he remained for a
little while at the eyepiece, staring at Satellite III. There it lay,
a diminishing globe, three-quarters of it gleaming in the light flung
by Jupiter. Dark patches mottled it: they would be the jungles. And
there was the scintillant sheet that was the Great Briney Lake, with
Port o' Porno nearby. On the other side of the little world, now, lay
the hill containing Leithgow's laboratory. All going ... going ...
falling swiftly behind. Satellite III, scene of so many clashes, plots
and counter-plots, where so many times he and Eliot Leithgow had
fought off the reaching hand of Ku Sui--soon it would be a million
miles away. What adventures would he have before he saw it again?...

A little sound came from the Hawk, a half-sigh. Abruptly he called one
of the men on his watch and stationed him at the 'scope, and then he
returned to the chart-table and the work of calculating their course
to Earth.

CHAPTER XIII

_In Earth's Shadow_

Hour after hour and day after day, for a week the _Sandra_ tracked on
through the boundless leagues, the waxing sunlight beating steadily on
her starboard bow and her silent gravity-plates and singing generators
bringing Earth ever nearer. Friday, who possessed an extensive
knowledge of all the practical sciences, did extra service in the role
of cook, and his regularly served meals disguised the undifferentiated
hours of space into Earth-mornings, noons and nights. Watch in and
watch out, and nothing to disturb the even routine.

As for the ever-feared pursuit, there was no sign of it.
Systematically and carefully the men stationed at the electelscope
turned it through the region behind, but never did their watching eyes
discern the bulk of the asteroid. Its disappearance, and the kindred
mystery of who had been on it, remained unsolved.

Therefore peace came to Eliot Leithgow's face, and the tiredness left
hi