"You remember our bargain?" he asked curtly through the space-phones.

Marshall shook a leathern pack of documents in his metal-gloved hand.

"I remember," he muttered hoarsely. "And if Alyce is completely recovered, as you say she is, I will sign every space-liner I own over to you."

"Very well," said Rufus Thallin. "Follow me."

He led them down a curving corridor carved from solid volcanic rock, and at length emerged into a gigantic cavern. The floor of the cavern ended abruptly in a ledge that fell sheer into black depths. Perched on the brink of the black abyss was Rufus Thallin's space-flyer. No hint as to how it had been transported here could be gained from the black unfathomable shadows that girded it around.

Alyce was waiting inside. She was beautiful in that happy moment of reunion, vastly more beautiful than mere words could have told, and her blue eyes were radiant with expectant joy. The tall space-clad man ran ahead eagerly and clambered through the aperture of an airlock.

Rufus felt Dr. Haliburton's gauntleted hand on his arm.

"Perhaps they'd rather be left alone," he said. "Remember, they'll be like strangers almost, meeting for the first time." Through a port they could see the big man, now without the upper portion of his space suiting, and the girl sobbing on his shoulder.

"You have done a wonderful thing," said Dr. Haliburton enviously. "Alyce is completely transformed. Rufus, there is some magical quality about the outer rays of cosmic space. If we could pin it down, we'd make enormous strides in preserving eternal health for the human body."

The young giant was looking up into black vaults. When he spoke his eyes were dreamy.

"I can see them now," he whispered. "Big cruisers, done over with the new radiotron drive, whisking across the gulfs as though they were nothing. The Thallin Starways will blaze an eternal trail across interplanetary space. Dad would have liked it that way."

Dr. Haliburton sighed. "If only you'd think more of science, and not of—"

Rufus Thallin was no longer listening. He had whirled around and was peering into the indigo blackness of the cavern from which they had come.

"My nerves," he said 

 Prev. P 20/23 next