fall into unscrupulous hands, be exploited for profit. They wanted to get it themselves and invent the radiotherapy projectors suitable for its use; and give it all to the suffering children of the world as their benefaction.

Dr. Atwood's letter to his son told how, finally, Dr. Johns had secured a small spaceship and had gone, trying to get to Planetoid-150. Dr. Atwood, in delicate health, had not dared make the trip. He had been waiting; and had left this letter to Roy, with voluminous data, as a precaution. Roy had read the letter a hundred times. It was in the small spaceship which he had built with the money inherited from his father, and which had brought him here. He remembered its final, pleading words:

"You must carry on for me, Roy. Believe me, son, the lives of thousands of thousands of children will be in your hands. And the health of thousands upon thousands of others, who do not die, but live with twisted little bodies, tragic, pathetic, piteous monuments to the futility of man's medical skill. You have seen them. They will be counting upon you."

How could he fail them? And how could he fail his dead father? The thought of that was what had spurred him; what had brought him here with a grim determination to secure the Xarite and get back as soon as possible.

"You are very quiet," the girl said timidly out of the silence.

"I was thinking," he said. "Out there in our—our God-Heaven if that's what you want to call it—well, it's certainly very queer—"

Queer indeed. How could he even attempt to explain it to her! These genes—hideous monsters here on this little world, held in check, destroyed by the Xarite radiance. And on Earth, the dread sub-microscopic spores of poliomelitus—his father had killed them with Xarite radiance. As though here might be not only the original source of the terrible spores, but the cure for them as well. Nature striking a balance here; and failing to do it on Earth. Did the spores, the genes drift through the immensity of space? Young Atwood well remembered that even a hundred years ago, physicians had advanced some such theory. Spores, landing on Earth, where conditions would not allow them to grow in size, but where they could only multiply themselves in the bodies of human victims.

"I was thinking," Atwood began again. And then he shrugged hopelessly and gave it up. "Ah-li, listen. Take me to your people now. They will know I'm friendly?"

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