momentarily. "She is on the Chicago. She needs somebody now, Ron Barnard. Go to her. I can't help; I'm an old man and afraid for my life. You are young and strong. There is danger, but go to her. Even if only for your scoop." Something in the old man's voice was hypnotic. Barnard stared at him. "Where is this Chicago?" he asked. "It's at Main Spaceport, in the public field. If she is not there, use this key and wait for her." Barnard rose slowly. He tried to shake a lump out of his throat, cursing himself for going soft. Sitting here listening to an old man mouth sentiment—he shook his head angrily and glared at Quong Kee. "I'll go," he said. "But only for the scoop." III Quong Kee's faintly cynical smile didn't make him feel any better. Leaving the place, he glared belligerently at the maniac he had fought with. Marching to the spaceport, his feelings intensified so that he forgot to walk slowly, the first rule on Mars, and had to hold his airpac to his nostrils all the way. By the time he found the Chicago, his fingers were stiff from holding the instrument. "Damn that living relic of a Quong Kee," he muttered, changing hands. "Damn everything!" So the girl needed him. He growled at the idea of the Chinese putting the girl ahead of the System News Service. His sense of humor came through then, and he laughed at himself. Ron Barnard, the hardest hearted reporter in the Solar System, was developing a crush on a girl he hardly knew! He chuckled at his emotions as if they were somebody else's. "If the boys in the city room ever hear of this," he thought, "they'll laugh me right off Earth. I'll have to become a space-beacon keeper." He stood for a minute sizing up the Chicago. Odd, he reflected, how the human mind before space travel had pictured space craft as wingless and cigar shaped. This rugged model, of an almost forgotten vintage, was short and stubby and wide winged. It scarcely looked spaceworthy, but the skies were filled with old craft like this one. He used the key Quong Kee had given him and found the ship deserted. The interior was better. He was pleased to find a three-inch layer of Selene between the hulls. The artificial spider silk, closely woven and specially processed, was as tough
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