around the corners of his lips.

With an effort he sat up on the seat back and looked through the perma-glas. A tangle of cords stretched out to the nylon of the main chute draped over a dust dune. Beyond it he could see the gleaming metal ribbons of the drogue chute.

Ahead of him, behind some low hills, he could see a dull red glow. The ship, he thought. Astro may already be hovering over it.

He dragged the survival kit from behind the seat and pulled out some rations, a first-aid kit, finally a tele-talkie. Raising the antenna, he plugged in the mike cord from his mask and held down the “talk” key with his thumb.

“Astro One, this is Brandon. Come in.”

As he talked a picture flickered on the screen. It was the radio room on Astro One. Colonel Towers was pacing back and forth in front of the radioman.

“Shall I keep trying to raise him?” he heard Reinhardt ask.

“Damn fool stunt,” Towers sputtered. “Know what I think? I think he went down deliberately. Just to be the first human being to walk the ground of a planet of another solar system.”

“Astro, this is Brandon. Come in please.”

[p24]Towers continued to pace and talk. “He did it to spite me.”

[p

24

]

“But we can’t raise him sir,” the radio operator said. “Maybe he didn’t get out of it alive.”

“Colonel Towers, can’t you hear me?” Brandon yelled into his oxygen mask.

“He got out all right,” the colonel said. “He’s just stalling to make it look good.”

“We aren’t going to give up the search are we, sir?” asked the radioman.

“It would serve his soul right.” The colonel stopped pacing and faced the radioman. “Keep trying to raise him, Reinhardt. I’m going to bring us down to forty thousand feet and search 

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