Counting the crew, there were thirty-one members of the expedition--nine women and twenty-two men. Everyone of them, Matt realized, must be present. The tension was so apparent that he could feel a thrill of nervousness. "No word, I suppose?" he asked, dropping into a vacant seat beside Lynn. "No," the girl shook her head, setting her shoulder-length, yellow hair to swinging. There was generally a half-wicked, half-mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, but it was lacking tonight. Little frown lines creased her low broad forehead. "You don't suppose the plague has anything to do with it, do you Matt?" "Plague? How could the plague affect broadcasting?" "I don't know." She shrugged helplessly. "Let's go up to the observation deck. This waiting is driving me off my beam." "Sure." Matt followed her into the passage. She was wearing coveralls like his own, but of a trimmer cut. She was unquestionably the prettiest of the nine women, he reflected. And hard as nails. Two years on the treacherous Martian deserts had enabled Matt to arrive at a pretty accurate estimate of everyone by the way they reacted to danger, to the disappointment at failing to discover evidence of life, to their cramped quarters. Their disappointment had been greater because Mars had been the last hope of discovering life in the Solar System besides that of Earth. No fossil life had been reported on the moon. The Reeves' expedition to Venus two years ago had found that the Venusian clouds were composed of dust swirling about a desiccated and lifeless world. Mercury had not yet been reached, nor any of the outer planets, but there was little expectation that life could have lodged in such inhospitable environments. No, in all the Solar System, Earth apparently was the only planet where septic conditions prevailed--and life could germinate.... * * * * * They reached the observation deck in the bullet-shaped nose of the vessel. Here the hull was built up of many small plates of quartzite like the facets of a fly's eye. They had an unobstructed view of the ebony arch of the heavens with Sol flaming like a beacon a point to starboard. "Where's Earth?" Lynn asked. "I never can find it." He pointed it out, a bright greenish star on the port side of the ship. It was just assuming a disk-shape with its tiny moon barely visible beside it. "It looks so far away," said the girl with a shiver. "I'm homesick, I guess. We've been gone almost three years." Matt said, "It's a long time." He slipped his arm about her waist. Lynn let her yellow head rest on his shoulder. "I'm tired of being tough. I'm scared. I want somebody to baby me and tell me everything's all right. "You--you don't think anything's happened to Earth, do you Matt?" "Nothing could happen to seven billion people that suddenly! We've got the jitters. We've been out too long." He kissed her almost roughly.