The angry demand crackled and arced invisibly across the space between both vessels. And there was no answer.

Jeff sat back from the communicator. The palms of his hands were wet and he wiped them on the cloth of his breeches.

"Let's get out of here," he said nervously.

"And leave him?" his father's lean forefinger indicated the strange silent ship.

"Why not?" Jeff jerked his face up. "We're no salvage outfit or Government exploration unit."

There was a moment of tenseness between them. The older man's face tightened.

"We'd better look into it," he said.

"Are you crazy?" blazed Jeff. "It was here when we came. It'll be here if we leave. Let's get going. We can report it if you want. Let the Federal ships investigate."

"Maybe it just landed," his father said evenly. "Maybe it's in trouble."

"What if it is?" Jeff insisted. "Don't you realize we're a sitting target here? And what do you think it is—Aunt Susie's runabout? Look at it!" And with a savage flip of his hand he shoved the magnification of the viewing screen up so that the other ship seemed to loom up a handbreadth beyond their walls.

It was an unnecessary gesture. There was no mistaking that the lines of the other ship were foreign to any they had ever seen. It was big: not outlandishly big, but bigger than the Emerald Girl, and bulb-shaped with most of its bulk in front. There was no sign of ports or airlocks, only a few stubby fins, which projected forlornly from the body at an angle of some thirty degrees.

And from its silence and immobility, its strange inhuman lines, a cold air of alien menace seemed to reach out to chill the two watching men.

"Well?" challenged Jeff. But the older man was not listening.

"The radarcamera," he said, half to himself. He turned on his heel and stalked off. Jeff, sitting tensely in his chair, heard his father's footsteps die away, to be succeeded seconds later by the distant clumsy sounds of a man getting into a spacesuit. Jeff swore, and jumping to his feet, ran to the airlock. His father, radarcamera at his feet, was already half-dressed to go outside.

"You aren't going out there?" he 

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