"My controls are in order, Sir," said the Radio Officer. "May I send a machinist's mate to look at the instrument?"

"Carry on, Mister," agreed McPartland, smiling suddenly. Best crew in the System, he told himself. His officers acted fast, without hesitation or alibi. "Report progress to the Control Room."

With a last disgusted frown at the visa-phone, McPartland left his cabin and walked through the narrow corridor to the Control Room. As he entered, Lieutenant-Commander Clemens turned from the view screen, his face achieving a masterpiece in worry.

"I was about to inform the Engineer, Sir," said the second-in-command, "The view screen is not functioning properly."

Engineer McTavish looked up from a chess game with Ray Control Officer Reynolds. Neither of the two had much to do in the way of duty, now that the patrol trip was ended. But the Control Room gave them an alert feeling to spice their chess board feud.

At the Lieutenant-Commander's words, McTavish rose with an alacrity that suggested a game not going to his liking. He reached the view screen with McPartland.

Most of the screen seemed normal. The three curved segments, representing joined fields of space extending around the sides and aft of the Avenger, showed the normal inky, star-studded black. But it was different with the forward screen. In the center, where the growing image of their green home planet should have been, was only blackness—unrelieved emptiness.

"From the looks of that, Mister McTavish," the Captain said sternly, "you have a few stalemated wires."

The Engineer's thin face flushed. His long nose twitched, and his grey eyes smouldered with professional indignation. "Begging your pardon, Sir," he objected. "If any coordinates had failed, the entire screen would blank out—and stay blanked, until I was notified. I would authorize partial operation only while the condition was being adjusted, Sir."

"Do you mean," asked Lieutenant-Commander Clemens, his voice dropping ominously, and one arm gesturing heavily at the empty blotch, "that—that—"

"That whatever you see is there," finished McTavish. "Or isn't there," he amended drily.

Captain McPartland saw Ray Control Officer Roberts get up quietly from before the chess board, and walk over to his station. Roberts, 

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