know that you were once a surveyor."

"It was seventeen years ago, and none of your business besides."

"What happened then?"

"Briefly, we were prospecting for ragnite, which was in demand at the time. We had already given up hopes of finding one gram of that mineral, but decided to make a last foray before blasting off. My brother, Malmsworth, stayed at our base camp. Poor Jenny—that was her name—remained behind to care for Malmsworth's lame ankle."

Captain DeCastros was lost for several minutes in a bleak and desolate valley of introspection wherein Mr. Wordsley dared not intrude. There was a certain grandeur about his great, dark visage, his falciform nose and meaty jowls as he stood there. Mr. Wordsley began to fidget and clear his throat.

DeCastros glared at him. "They were gone when we returned. Gone, I tell you! She, to her death. Malmsworth—well, we found him three hours later in the great rift which bisects the massive plateau that is the most outstanding feature of the regular surface of Avis Solis. At the end of this rift there is a natural cave that opens into the sheer wall of the plateau. Within it is a bottomless chasm. It was here that we found certain of Jenny's garments, but of Jenny, naturally, there was no trace. He had seen to that."

"Terrible," Mr. Wordsley said.

DeCastros smiled reminiscently. "He fled, but we caught him. He really had a lame ankle, you know."

The mice of apprehension scampered up and down Mr. Wordsley's spine. "You killed him." It was a statement of certainty.

"No, indeed. That would have been too easy. We left him there with one portable water-maker and all of that unpalatable but nourishing fungus which thrives upon Avis Solis that he could eat. I have no doubt that he lived until madness reduced his ability to feed himself."

"That was drastic," Mr. Wordsley felt called upon to say. "Perhaps—perhaps it occurred to you later on that, in charity to your brother, the er—woman might not have been altogether blameless."

For a moment he thought that Captain DeCastros was about to strike him again. He did not. Instead he spat at Mr. Wordsley. He had the speed of a cobra. There was not time to get out of the way. Mr. Wordsley employed a handkerchief on his face.

"She was my wife, you know, Mr. Wordsley," Captain DeCastros said pleasantly.

At nineteen-over-four the contamination buzzers sounded their dread warning.

Mr. Wordsley got the alarm first. He had been furtively repairing the viewscreen and thinking dark thoughts the while. There was sick dread for him in the contemplation of the future, for after this last unfortunate blunder DeCastros would be certain to keep his promise and have him examined. This might very well be his last voyage, and Mr. Wordsley had known for quite a long time that he could not live anywhere except out here in the void.

Only in space, where the stars were like diamonds. Not in the light of swirling, angry, red suns, not upon the surface of any planet, so drab when you drew too near. Only in the sterile purity of remote space where he could maintain and nourish the essential purity of his day-dreams. But of course one could not explain this to the Board of Examiners; least of all to Captain DeCastros.

Moreover, he was afraid that Avis Solis, which he had been permitted to behold for only a few seconds, would be out of range before he got the scanner to working again. The aspect of this magnificent gem diminishing forever into the limitless night brought a lump to his throat.

But then, at last, the screen came alive once more, and there it loomed, more brilliant than ever, now so huge that it filled the screen, and it had not become drab, neither gray-green or brown. No, it was cake frosting, and icicles, and raindrops against the sun, and all of the bright, unattainable Christmas tree ornaments of his childhood.

So rapt was he that he scarcely heard the alarm. Yet he responded automatically to the sound that now