He was quite young though he certainly didn't look it now. He'd been known as a playboy ever since his father struck it big in Venusian oil. But good-looking, personable, he had worn the label well. He'd been good copy because the public regarded him with patronizing affection. To them, he'd been a nice kid having fun; not a young wastrel wasting his father's money. Naturally he would pick a glamour girl to play the romantic feminine role and Melody Hayden had filled the bill perfectly. Together, they had enchanted the public. Princess and Prince Charming stuff. Then tragedy. Disaster in a rocketing sports car; Melody's coffin sealed before the funeral; young Holloway coming off without a scratch. Melody's death was a bombshell and everyone asked. _What will he do now?_ expecting of course, something sensational. He didn't let them down. Dramatically, he announced a completely new life. He bought a space ship and foreswore his old ways. He had quite a reputation as a big game hunter. He'd stalked the vicious Plutonian ice bears and lain in Venusian swamps waiting for the ten-ton lizards to rise out of the slime. He had knocked over the wiliest of animals, a telepathic Uranian mountain wolf and had dropped in flight a Martian radar-bat, a feat duplicated by only three other marksmen of record. So what more natural occupation than guiding hunting parties in deep space? Holloway had been obviously torn by Melody's tragic death. Perhaps out among the stars he could forget. * * * * * There had been some trouble, Mason recalled, in clearing Holloway's first cruise. A party of five. Not to any established hunting ground but a D. U. thing. _Destination Unknown_, and they were always trouble. Clearance had been made, though, and now--here was Holloway back again--dramatically of course--with one of his party dead and the other four in trance-like stupors. Strange. And stranger still, Holloway's reason for wanting to talk immediately; with no rest--no medical attention: "It will help keep me awake. I mustn't go to sleep. Can't I make you understand? _I've got to stay awake._" Mason pitied the man. He turned to Kennedy. "I have the log here, sir. Perhaps you could go over it now--" Holloway leaned forward. "I'll tell you what's in the log. Every word of it. If I just sit here waiting--" Mason laid a hand on his knee. "It's all right, old chap. I won't let you go to sleep. You and I will talk while Mr. Kennedy goes through the log. It won't take long." Mason handed the book to Kennedy. He was almost apologetic. "It's a strange log, sir, It--" "Strange?" Kennedy frowned. Logs had no right to be strange. There were regulations--rules stating exactly how a log should be kept. "Well sir, the lad is young. His first trip. I just meant there's perhaps a little more in the log than should appear there."