nt to go with us on this
venture. And do you?"

* * * * *

As Milton's question hung, Randall drew a long breath. His eyes were
on the two great cubical chambers, and his brain seemed whirling at
what he had heard. Then he was on his feet with the others.

"Go? Could you keep me from going? Why, man, it's the greatest
adventure in history!"

Milton grasped his hand, as did Lanier, and then the physicist shot a
glance at the square clock on the wall. "Well, there's little enough
time left us," he said, "for we've hardly an hour before midnight, and
at midnight we must be in that transmitting chamber for Nelson to send
us flashing out!"

Randall could never recall but dimly afterward how that tense hour
passed. It was an hour in which Milton and Nelson went with anxious
faces and low-voiced comments from one to another of the pieces of
apparatus in the room, inspecting each carefully, from the great
dynamos to the transmitting and receiving chambers, while Lanier
quickly got out and made ready the rough khaki suits and equipment
they were to take.

It lacked but a quarter-hour of midnight when they had finally donned
those suits, each making sure that he was in possession of the small
personal kit Milton had designated. This included for each a heavy
automatic, a small supply of concentrated foods, and a small case of
drugs chosen to counteract the rarer atmosphere and lesser gravity
which Milton had been warned to expect on the red planet. Each had
also a strong wrist-watch, the three synchronized exactly with the
big laboratory clock.

* * * * *

When they had finished checking up on this equipment the clock's
longer hand pointed almost to the figure twelve, and the physicist
gestured expressively toward the transmitting chamber. Lanier, though,
strode for a moment to one of the laboratory's doors and flung it
open. As Randall gazed out with him they could see far out over the
tossing sea, dimly lit by the great canopy of the summer stars
overhead. Right at the zenith among those stars shone brightest a
crimson spark.

"Mars," said Lanier, his voice a half-whisper. "And they're waiting
out there for us now--out there where we'll be in minutes!"

"And if they shouldn't be waiting--their receiving chamber not
ready--"

But Milton's calm voice came across the room to them: "Zero hour," he
said, stepping up into the big transmitting chamber.

La