She got only icy stares. After a while she sulkily began setting up the Wesley board for the Earth jump. ..... 12 ROSS awoke, clearheaded and alert. Helena and Bernie were looking at him apprehensively. He understood and said grudgingly, “Sorry I flipped. I didn’t mean to scare you. Everything seemed to go black——” They smothered him with relieved protestations that they understood perfectly and Helena wouldn’t stick hairpins into the Wesley Drive ever again. Even if the ship hadn’t blown up. Even if she had rescued the men from “Minerva.” “Anyway,” she said happily, “we’re off Earth. At least, it’s _supposed_ to be Earth, according to the charts.” He unkinked himself and studied the planet through a vision screen at its highest magnification. The apparent distance was one mile; nothing was hidden from him. “Golly,” he said, impressed. “Science! Makes you realize what backward gropers we were.” Obviously they had it, down there on the pleasant, cloud-flecked, green and blue planet. Science! White, towering cities whose spires were laced by flying bridges—and inexplicably decorated with something that looked like cooling fins. Huge superstreamlined vehicles lazily coursing the roads and skies. Long, linked-pontoon cities slowly heaving on the breasts of the oceans. Science! Ross said reverently, “We’re here. Flarney was right. Helena, Bernie, Doc—maybe this is the parent planet of us all and maybe it isn’t. But the people who built those cities _must_ know all the answers. Helena, will you please land us?” “Sure, Ross. Shall I look for a spaceport?” Ross frowned. “Of course. Do you think _these_ people are savages? We’ll go in openly and take our problem to them. Besides, imagine the radar setup they must have! We’d never sneak through even if we wanted to.” Helena casually fingered the controls; there was the sickening swoop characteristic of her ship-handling, several times repeated. As she jerked them wildly across the planet’s orbit she explained over her shoulder, “I had the darnedest time finding a really big spaceport on that little radar thing—oops!—but there’s a nice-looking one near that coastal city. Whee! That was close! There was one—sorry, Ross—on a big lake inland, but I didn’t like——Now everybody be very quiet. This is the hard part and I have to concentrate.” Ross hung on. Helena landed the ship with her usual timber-shivering crash. “Now,” she said briskly, “we’d better allow a little time for it to cool down. This _is_ nice, isn’t it?”