Without the ladder to hamper them they could be more furtive in their movements. They dodged lithely around towering chunks of light-colored lunarite and darker lunabase. The rock formations looked like petrified sponges jutting up out of a dried-up sea bottom. When the two had to go out in the open, they sprinted toward the next place of cover. Since hoarfrost continued to gather on their suits, they constantly brushed it off. A moving white figure even in the deep shadows might be noticed by anyone in the _Dog Star_. Now only a few hundred feet separated Rock and Shep from the space ship. They began swinging inward nearer the _glacis_ or outer slope of the crater, heading toward the wall of lunabase. “If they’ve seen us, they haven’t given any sign,” Rock said with some measure of satisfaction when they had reached the foot of the wall and were watching the dumbbell shape of the _Dog Star_ just a short distance away. Standing on its tripod base, it looked like a huge kettle. Rock and Shep started up the rugged slope. Although precipitous and craggy, it did not look to be too difficult to climb since there were natural footholds at almost every step. Nevertheless a slip would be perilous, if not fatal. The boys had been well drilled in the dire effects of having one’s space suit ripped open. In such case the suit collapsed like a burst balloon, admitting the killing cold or heat, whichever it might be, causing death. When Rock and Shep were at a height level with the ports of the _Dog Star_, they began crawling laterally toward the ship. Rime covered the corallike edges, making them slippery as the comparative warmth of their space suits melted the ice particles. They were about fifty feet from the ship at this point. Rock checked the counter. There was no gamma-ray contamination from the _Dog Star_. It was safe to approach closer. They got as close as they dared to the port that looked in on the main control room. They could see Leo and Ed working intently on an opened gear-box beside the instrument console. Across the room sat Jack Judas, a grim look on his beetle-browed face. And in his hand the boys could see a blaster. “They did smuggle weapons aboard, Rock!” Shep said. “They must have hidden them carefully.” “That proves they planned the scheme from the very beginning,” Rock said. “And it’s going to make it harder for us, because we’re unarmed,” Shep remarked. “I believe the boys are stalling them,” Rock said. “They probably doctored the controls and brought the ship down just to give us time to catch up with them.” “I wish there were some way to let them know we’ve landed,” Shep said. “That is, if Kalmus hasn’t found out already.”