snapped.

"If Marshal Denton surrenders, Sir," Clemens pointed out, "and the light is restored, the outlaws would see the mines. They could—"

The Engineer's voice rang in his headset, and he winced. The others heard McTavish's words over the phone: "The light! The light, man! They hit one of the torpedoes!"

"We hope—" Clemens said.

Jon's glance swept to the forward screen. Starlight was cutting into the edges of the blackness. He watched that hated blackness shrink—shrink, until Terra floated blue and beautiful oh the view screen.

"Terra," Jon whispered, half to himself, "Whose Terra?"

The Lieutenant-Commander winced again as another voice rang in his ears, and he relayed without an attempt at pessimism: "Observation reports wreckage of ship, Sir, and presence of ninety-eight floating mines."

McPartland spoke into the phone himself: "Navigation. Course for Terra Base. Pass through mined area. Mister Reynolds would like a little practice—destroying the extra mines."

Reynolds, a grateful smile on his round face, ran his finger lovingly over the calculators, and spoke into his mike: "All ray stations. Fire on command only." The calculators clicked. "Station Six, range—"

Almira Denton looked up at Captain Jon McPartland with eyes that were the soft hue of Terra itself.

"Almira," he said, "about that—that case report."

She smiled, and the curve of her soft lips was as it had been in his mind since he left on patrol. "Jon darling," she laughed. "We can forget that. When the Congress gets through ferreting out its traitors, and hearing your report, father won't need my help with them."

"But I want you to analyze me," he insisted.

"I mean to, Jon," she agreed gently. "But only for my own information."

"And mine, too, darling," he said. "I want you to analyze a dream," McPartland said firmly. "I keep seeing a little asteroid—one I explored when I had a one-man Patrol scout, way back. I keep seeing it with an atmosphere unit installed, and a Terra-gravity unit. There's a house, and a beautiful woman with red-gold hair and gorgeous eyes, and a little boy named Patrick, and a little girl named 

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