EARTHBOUND By HENRY GUTH Never was there a spaceflight more daring! Virgil and Lanya sought what everyone else their age had given up in despair. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Lanya Greggor, holding tightly to her brother Virgil's hand, sauntered with deliberate and exaggerated nonchalance through the great halls of the Martian Museum of Science. Her eyes were wide with excitement and pleasure. She was ten years old and Virgil twelve and this was her first visit to the museum. Hand in hand, always under the watchful eyes of strategically-placed uniformed attendants they walked ecstatically through the innumerable fascinating rooms, stopping to gaze with equally undisguised admiration at mammoth and complex industrial machinery and minute, hypersensitive instruments of obscure function. The attendant smiled warmly as they walked past him and entered the biggest room they had yet been in. "There she is," Virgil said proudly. "Just like I told you." Lanya looked. She was dwarfed by the colossal metal hulk that loomed ponderously before her. She leaned back to scan its immense bulk from top to bottom. The bronze inscription plate divulged the information that it was the "Ghost", the first ship to land safely on Mars from a foreign planet. That was the Von Erickson expedition from Earth almost two centuries ago. According to the history texts that Lanya had read, that event brought about the almost overnight transformation of Mars from an agrarian to a scientific civilization. Trade and exchange of ideas with Earth, and later with other planets, had accomplished seeming miracles on Mars. The ship seemed comically primitive to little Lanya. Its huge bulk was almost entirely made up of rocket-drive engine and fuel compartments. She studied the elongated shape that stretched to the vaulted roof like a spear head and rested solidly on the rear jet clusters. High up in the nose she could see the tiny cabin just big enough for three astronauts. Compared with the sleek, beautifully-designed atomic craft in the rest of the museum, it was grotesque. "Gosh," breathed Lanya, "it's big, isn't it?" "Yes," said Virgil, with the full confidence of two years at the Technological Institute. "Very crude design, but necessary because there is so much engine to it. Simple to construct, though, and with a few refinements ... oh boy!"