But Gary stopped him before the irate cameraman's outspoken indignation should only worsen their plight. He asked quietly, "That is your final and considered decision?" The councillor nodded for himself and his associates. "It is. When you return to Earth you may tell your government we of Venus are not fools. And now, farewell." He nodded to a retinue of guards. Short minutes later the dejected little group was being led back toward the spaceport. For the most part they were silent, each lost in the overwhelming sadness of his own thoughts. Only one spoke, and he in a mutter. That one was Flick Muldoon. "Not fools, eh? I wonder if he'd like to make book on that...." * * * * * "So," said Hugh Warren, "that seems to be that. What do we do now, Gary? Give up?" Gary said, "I don't know _what_ to do, Hugh." "I am afraid," sighed Dr. Anjers, "our mission is a failure. Perhaps it were best we go back to Earth and throw ourselves on the clemency of the World Council." "You maybe," said the skipper of the _Liberty_ ruefully, "but not me. I'm in it too deep. Well, Gary, better make up your mind." "We go on," decided Lane suddenly. "That's all we _can_ do. Swallow this failure and go on to Mars. Perhaps there our plea will meet with more success." "But," demurred Dr. Bryant, "if we lack sufficient fuel--" "We must find some substitute," said Gary. But even as he said it, he knew he was guilty of wishful thinking. There was no substitute for _neurotrope_. There were many fuels capable of adaptation to the explosion chamber of hypatomic motors, but none compact enough and powerful enough to make possible the long, sustained flight which lay before them. Warren said, "You're the doctor," and turned to the control studs, setting the stops for the next leg of their journey, that which must carry them 200,000,000 miles through space to the crimson, arid comet of Mars. As he depressed the proper button, lights flashed and relays clicked. Small bells jangled in the bowels of the ship, setting unseen engineers and crewmen to the fulfillment of their tasks. Skipper Warren smiled drearily, "Well, at any rate," he said, "we have the satisfaction of knowing that fuel or no fuel, we have under us the smoothest little ship in space. Mile for mile it will give us more speed per pound of fuel than any other ship--" He stopped suddenly, lurching and grasping for support, startled into silence as the deck beneath him bucked and quivered violently. Someone shouted. Nora screamed a little scream of dismay. Only by grasping an upright of the control turret did Gary Lane keep himself from tumbling bruisingly across the room. Flick Muldoon, victim of an unexpectedly violent threepoint landing, glared up irately from the floor. "Smoothest little ship in space, eh? It's sure acting like it now."