And here he was, the job done. The false arrest and its purpose was known only to Skipper and himself. Even the actors whose "bodies" were immediately claimed by their families, knew nothing of their work's significance. After two months, the city editor would confess to the hoax, pay whatever fine was imposed, and Rusty would be released--with a priceless story. The two months were over, and the story _was_ priceless. Dealing intimately with the primitive simplicity of souls without hope and their degenerate abandon of all that civilization had bestowed, his tale would weave a pattern of remorse that such conditions should exist anywhere in the universe. Pluto and its four moons were billions of miles from home, anybody's home. Three of its satellites, of about equal size and in close juxtaposition, were the planet's only source of warmth for the sun of the life line planets was dim, far away. * * * * * The flat emergency field was crowded with hulking forms from every planet; talking, gesticulating excitedly, curious vultures awaiting the new broken spirits, black-souled as themselves. Rusty neared the low target building, saw his dim reflection in a glassy wall; tall and thin despite the cumbersome furs. He had lost weight, he observed. His bronzed seventy-five inches of slender, handsome youth had shed the surplus flesh that he had accumulated in Earthian cities. His body was now trimmed to bare muscle, sinews of steel. One _fought_ to live here. One fought the cold, the Bugs, crazed men--but the hopelessness of the struggle could not be fought, and one died and was glad to die. One of their number in every other respect, Rusty had _hope_--and he had been forced to keep this thought ever before him as the contagion of omnipresent despair clutched at him also. He ran a long hand through his leonine hair; badly in need of cutting, it swirled, dark sorrel, about his hawk-like features. The huge Vulcanian, Lothar, approached. Massive head bent, he leaned toward Rusty as he passed. "We leave at noon," he muttered. "Meet at White Cliff, if you go!" Familiarity had bred disinterest in the strange forms from other worlds but the nearness of his departure gave new light to the things about him. Lothar, the Vulcanian! Rusty looked at the great creature, and thought of the excitement Vulcan's discovery had occasioned. In the orbit of Mercury, behind the sun, making it ever invisible to Earth, it was the first planet to be found by interstellar exploration. Occurring long before Rusty was born, it was another Stanley-Livingston affair in the annals of feature news. Of course, Vulcan's existence had been calculated by its effect on Mercury's perihelion as early as the nineteenth century by--what was his name?--Leverrier! Who had been disproved by Einstein, twentieth century, who was himself later disproved. Rusty smiled. Get the facts! Soon he would be back at the old job again....