Seconds went on and Holt could see the resources of the entire world collecting to prepare the First Spacewreck Rescue. Complete with video, reporters, clergymen, politicians, and humanity waiting. "_Lady Luna_ repeat. You are fading." Holt repeated, insisting that he was all right. "I can stick it out. I can stick it out." He watched the radio battery fade. Let it fade. He could stand the silence for two months until rescue came. * * * * * A billion people listened to his voice die away. And when their radio networks went dead, they raced to their telephones and clogged the land wires demanding that something had to be done. Congressmen gave speeches and clergymen spoke and doctors gave opinions and scientists differed. A government seldom known for its cooperation announced that its new atomic-powered rocket was about to effect the rescue single-handedly. But the atomic part blew up in front of the video cameras and took some of the landscape with it. The Council of the United Nations called a meeting. The newspapers and networks covered everything. A man known for his brilliance came on the air. "The batteries of the _Lady Luna_ have run down," he said. "We must get there in less than ten days." They tried to do it. A second rocket exploded in France. A third blew up in Germany. The fourth would not be ready for space for sixty days. That was seventy long days after Holt's landing. Without a miracle, Holt would be dead, even if the experts were wrong. Protestants prayed, Catholics crossed themselves, and Mohammedans called it _kismet_ and let it go at that. A scientist suggested that since there was no habitable planet in the solar system and that mankind could never reach the stars, there was small point in this effort to make space travel pay off. An economist computed the sum of money shelled out already and called it damned foolishness. A Senator Maculay suggested that taxes could be lowered if such expenditures were cut out. And ten days after the accident there was a world-wide prayer said for Gordon Holt. * * * * * The other rocket at White Sands grew cobwebs in its empty fuel tanks. And the _Lady Luna_ slipped into the dark of the moon. It grew colder and colder as time went on....