Adam stared hopelessly after his retreating back. Damnation! Everything had seemed to go wrong since the beginning of this voyage. The harder he tried to prove himself worthy of the appointment as second-in-command to "Old Steel-Wall" the worse things went. With a shrug he turned doggedly to the chart work. Two hours later he stepped over to the chart-room port and gazed out into the velvet blue-black of space where the thousand suns of the Milky Way burned across the horizon. It was no use. He was going to have to make a fool of himself again. But could he help it? Captain McCausland had certainly asked him to check the course through the planetoid belt. Perhaps he would forget now, and not ask about the checking operation. But if he did? Certainly Walter McCausland couldn't have been wrong. Yet the figures--? Adam studied his work sheet again, shaking his head. "Finished the checking, Longworth?" The voice startled him so that he jumped. "Yes, sir. Shall I take over the watch, sir?" "Little early, aren't you? What do you think of the course, Mister?" Adam hesitated. "It seems ... likely to get us there, sir." McCausland's eyes became points. "Are you by any chance evading my question? I'll repeat it. It was--what do you think of the course? What is your opinion?" Adam gulped. Here it was. "There seems to be a fault in it, sir. I'm sorry." "Indeed?" The tone was sarcastic. "Elucidate, Mister Mate." "It takes us up out of the plane of the ecliptic, then back again beyond the planetoid belt. That's very good, sir, and quite safe, but didn't you omit the fuel consumption factor? The course as plotted gives two shifts of forty-five degrees each, or half a complete stop, as far as fuel is concerned. It would cut down the amount of fuel available for exploration on Pluto to--well, here are the figures as I've worked them out. We'd have about enough for two or three landings. But if we went right through the danger belt of the planetoids as originally planned, we would save enough fuel to really explore the planet. We have to explore thoroughly if we're going to find beryllium there. It won't lie on the surface. Why, it's hardly worth going on at all if we can't do any more exploring than that.... That's my opinion, sir, and I didn't volunteer it, and I ask your pardon in advance." * * * * * The great space captain smiled easily. "No need to beg my pardon at all. At first glance one would think you had the right of it, but I just happen to have gone into the matter a little deeper. You understand the reasons behind this voyage? Well, suppose that after having been away for two years we come back right on schedule, but without a load of beryllium, without having found any trace of it. What will happen? The League of Planets simply orders out another expedition, better equipped, and we go down as having failed."