"There's another one sitting outside," he said casually.

"Maybe it's Colonel Fawcett," the girl cried eagerly.

Jerry shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He looked at her a moment, then turned to Pinkham. "This one has four arms," he said.

CHAPTER III

They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the Elephant's Child, eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm and the frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O. Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohp of the extinct Martian Space Navy.

"If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp was saying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter on his chest—a tiny box which could be set to change any of nine thousand spoken languages into any one of the others—"and at that time my people had lost the secrets of space travel for approximately four thousand years, this means that I have been reclining on a planetoid here for at least 4,100 years. The probability is that it has been much longer. Unfortunately my time recorder has long since become inoperative."

He extended one of his four rib appendages and picked up a piece of carrot. "Naturally I was in a cataleptic state," he went on. "As you may know, in my race that means that all body processes are suspended in toto. There is no growth and no decay. Moth and rust do not corrupt, you might put it."

Pink frowned momentarily. There was a false note somewhere, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He tried to remember all he could about the dying race of Martians. What Ynohp was saying was correct, as nearly as he could recall, but ... he shrugged. My God! he thought, this critter's over four thousand years old!

Well, Circe's about forty-five.

The hell she is. She's twenty-seven, which was her age when her ship was wrecked, plus about one actual year of life which equals the eighteen she was lost in the Slugjet. Twenty-eight, then, really. I'm thirty-one. Not a bad combination.

Hey, boy, you're a confirmed bachelor, remember?

He chuckled. Who says so? He took a look at Circe. The prettiest spaceman who ever came my way, he said to himself happily.

The dinner broke up. Space etiquette demanded that he escort the 

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