"I know. I told Kinkare to put her into the same orbit as the asteroid belt. We want to stay in the same relation to the planetoids till we decide where to look for Fawcett."

"I know you issued those orders, Pink. I meant we aren't in the orbit. We're hanging in space, and the dang asteroids are shooting past us." Daley flipped on his great banks of scanners. "See?" Bands of light were tiny balls of inert matter, flashing by an obviously stationary Elephant's Child.

Pink jumped for the intercom. "No use," said Daley. "It's dead. I sent Calico for Randy Kinkare." They looked at each other. "I think it's Ynohp," said Daley.

Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done it—if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet per second."

"Maybe he can."

"You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as Terrestrians."

"And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?"

"Washington, did you ever see a Martian?"

"Yeah."

"Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall, four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?"

"I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other facts could explain it."

Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run.

Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly.

The space drive was out of commission.

They were adrift in the void.

 Prev. P 10/65 next