in the Moon, presided from a makeshift throne in the main salon, and Andrea Duncan, smiling a little, watched the victims each get their dose of crazy-gas. She’d already had her initiation, and the effects of the mildly intoxicating gas were wearing off.

It was difficult to believe that outside the hull lay empty space, dark and limitless. Andrea turned her mind away from the thought. But another came—Saul—and she bit her lip and caught her breath in a tiny gasp. Saul! Had Olcott managed the escape? Was Saul Duncan free from Transpolar?

He must be. Olcott wouldn’t fail. That meant that in a few hours Andrea must destroy the communication system. Olcott had told her the best way. Yes, she was ready. It would mean freedom for Saul.

If she failed, Olcott had said, her husband would be sent back to Transpolar, with an additional heavy sentence—ten more years, perhaps. Well, she wouldn’t fail.

A man brushed past her. “Your hair’s mussed up—”

Instinctively Andrea lifted a hand, only to be checked by the hard plastic curve of her Helmet. It was an old gag, but she forced herself to smile. The necessity of wearing Helmets in space had become a joke to most of the passengers. Probably only the officers realized the true danger of the Plutonian mind-vampires.

Everyone in the salon, of course, wore a Helmet—even the Man in the Moon, under his disguise. Cumbersome as they looked, they rested lightly on the wearers’ shoulders, and were actually so light that one easily became accustomed to them. Andrea studied her reflection in a nearby mirror. Her small, heart-shaped face seemed dwarfed by the Helmet. Experimentally, like an interested child, she pressed a stud and saw the transparent, air-tight shield slide into place an inch from her nose. Within the ship the shields were not necessary, nor were complete space-suits. But the Helmets were vital.

Andrea knew little or nothing of the technical details. The secret of the Helmets lay in the luminous, intertron knob atop each one. It was this that provided a two-way hook-up with the Varra. She remembered what an officer had told her, when she had first donned a Helmet at the Atlantic Spaceport.

“Never done it before, eh, miss? Well, don’t be frightened. Let me help you.” He had adjusted the bulky Helmet. “The power won’t be turned on till we hit the Heaviside Layer. The Varra can’t safely enter our atmosphere, you know.”

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