the ship you can't reach. I'm a machine."

"Is anyone else aboard besides ourselves?"

"No. I control the ship." Although the voice spoke without stilted phrases, the tone was cold and mechanical.

"What are your—your masters going to do with us?" Marie asked anxiously.

"You won't be harmed. My masters merely wish to question and examine you. Thousands of years ago, they wondered what your race would be like when it developed to the space-flight stage. They left this ship on your Moon only because they were curious. My masters have no animosity toward your race, only compassion and curiosity."

I remembered the way antigravity rays had shoved Miller from the ship and asked the machine, "Why didn't you let our fifth member board the ship?"

"The trip to my makers' planet will take six months. There are food, oxygen and living facilities for four only of your race. I had to prevent the fifth from entering the ship."

"Come on," Kane ordered. "We'll search this ship room by room and we'll find some way to make it take us back to Earth."

"It's useless," the ship warned us.

For five hours, we minutely examined every room. We had no tools to force our way through solid metal walls to the engine or control rooms. The only things in the ship that could be lifted and carried about were the containers of food and alien games. None were sufficiently heavy or hard enough to put even a scratch in the heavy metal.

Six rooms were open to our use. The two rooms in which the Kanes had been imprisoned were locked and there were no controls or locks to work on.

The rooms that we could enter were without doors, except the ones that opened into the corridor.

After intensive searching, we realized there was no way to damage the ship or reach any section other than our allotted space.

We gave up.

The women went to the sleeping compartments to rest and Kane I went to the "kitchen."

At random, we sampled the variously colored boxes and bottles and discussed our predicament.

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