"Imprisonment for life!--and you didn't know that you were sentencing yourself. For you're staying too, Schwartzmann, you contemptible, thieving dog! You're staying with us--here--on the Dark Moon!" CHAPTER VI "_Six to Four_" Perhaps to every person in that control room there came, as Chet's quiet, emotionless tones died away, the same mental picture; for there was the same dazed look on the countenances of all. They were seeing an ocean of space, an endless void of empty black. And across that etheric sea was a whirling globe. They had seen it from afar; they had seen its diminutive continents and its snow-clad poles.... They would never see it again.... Earth!--their own world!--home! And now for them it was only a moon, a tremendous, glorious moon, whose apparent nearness would be taunting and calling them each day and night of their lives.... It was Diane Delacouer who dared to break the hard silence that bound them all. From wide eyes she stared at Walt Harkness; then her lips formed a trembling smile in which Chet, too, was included. "You saved us," she whispered; "you saved us, Chet ... but now it looks as if we all were exiles." She crossed slowly, walking like one in a dream, to stand close to Walt Harkness. And Chet Bullard also roused himself; but it was toward the stupefied, hulking figure of Schwartzmann that he moved. He reached for the detonite pistol, and this man who had been their captor was too stunned to make any resistance. Chet jammed the weapon under his belt. "Close that port!" he ordered the two men who had half-opened it at Schwartzmann's command. "Keep that poison gas out." * * * * * There was a flash of color that swept by the open port--some flying creature of vivid crimson: Chet had no time to see what manner of bird or beast it was. But it was alive! He crossed to examine the spectro-analyzer, and the two men disregarded his order and slipped into the rear cabin. "Seems all clear to me, Walt," he said; and Harkness confirmed his findings with a quick glance. "O.K.!" he assured Chet; "that air is all right to breathe." He glanced from a lookout port. "The air's moving now," he said. "That gas--whatever it was--is gone; it must have settled down here in the night. Some new vent that has opened since we were here before. "But suppose we forget that and settle matters in here," he suggested; and Chet nodded assent. "Call your men!" Harkness ordered Schwartzmann. The man had recovered his composure; again his heavy face was flushed beneath a stubble of beard. He made no move to comply with Harkness' demand. But there was no need: from the cabin at the rear came the scientist, Kreiss. His face was pale and drawn, and he stared long and searchingly at Chet Bullard. His breath still whistled in his throat; the poison gas had nearly done for him.