taking a sudden upward turn. “He developed the surgiscope, didn't he? But his ship was drawn into Jupiter and lost.”

“It was drawn into Jupiter, but he landed it successfully,” said Quest. “He and my mother lived on Jupiter until the oxygen equipment wore out at last. I was born and brought up there, and I was finally able to build a small rocket with a powerful enough drive to clear the planet.”

She looked at him. He was short, half a head shorter than she, but broad and powerful as a man might be who had grown up in heavy gravity. He trod the street with a light, controlled step, seeming to deliberately hold himself down.

“If Dr. Mansard succeeded in landing on Jupiter, why didn't anyone ever hear from him again?” she demanded.

“Because,” said Quest, “his radio was sabotaged, just as his ship's drive was.”

“Jupiter strength,” she murmured, looking him over coolly. 53“You wear Motwick on your shoulder like a scarf. But you couldn't bring yourself to help a woman against two thugs.”

53

He flushed.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “That's something I couldn't help.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. It's not that I'm afraid, but there's something in me that makes me back away from the prospect of fighting anyone.”

Trella sighed. Cowardice was a state of mind. It was peculiarly inappropriate, but not unbelievable, that the strongest and most agile man on Ganymede should be a coward. Well, she thought with a rush of sympathy, he couldn't help being what he was.

They had reached the more brightly lighted section of the city now. Trella could get a cab from here, but the Stellar Hotel wasn't far. They walked on.

Trella had the desk clerk call a cab to deliver the unconscious Motwick to his home. She and Quest had a late sandwich in the coffee shop.

“I landed here only a week ago,” he told her, his eyes frankly admiring her honey-colored hair and comely face. “I'm heading for Earth on the next spaceship.”

“We'll be traveling companions, then,” she said. “I'm going back on that ship, too.”

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