"Okay, Sade," he smiled, "but there's one thing maybe you don't know. Johnny built _two_ ships, a smaller one before he equipped the cruiser he left in. I'm taking that ship to try to reach Vulcan. Johnny's spectroscope proved a lot about this Fountain of Youth business and now it's the only chance to save his life. Anyway, I'll find out what happened to him, and if you had anything to do with it, I'm going to tear your yellow throat out." He slammed the sputtering Ambassador back into his chair, and left the office. Now Sade would forget the Secretary of State and order his patrol to be waiting for him. A burst of flame in desolate space and who would know. * * * * * Ten minutes outside the Mercurian Zone of Protection, Norman welcomed the misty glow as live nebulae engulfed the transparent dome surrounding him. It brightened the monotonous blue light in the pilot room and erased his lonely reflection in the foot-thick thermo-glass that darkened the white-hot glare of space ahead. Traveling near Mercury was like walking a tight rope. A few degrees off course and the delicate balance between worlds would totter--jerk him away to a charred plunge into the Sun. Also, Sade's wolves might appear any moment now. But he'd get through them, he thought, slapping the trigger grip of his panel guns. The picture of Johnny back there in the hospital, however, was an ache in his throat that dulled his excitement--an excitement reminiscent of hundreds of tight spots they'd squeezed through together before they'd struck it right and traded adventure for tea cups. Helpless, crazed, eighty years old before his time--why hadn't Johnny waited! But he was bull-headed and bored, anxious to prove what his spectroscope hinted--that Vulcan, close in the arms of the mother Sun, was a spawning place for life itself. Ponce de Leon again, in 2063.... Grinding out his cigarette, Norman glanced at the chart in his lap, eyed the circle that was Vulcan, a white circle--_unexplored_. Deep in the whirlpool of the Sun's gravitation, it had lured countless ships to a hurtling destruction until a trade-wise Mercury placed guards around the area and its siren world. Norman glanced up from his musings as the filter's blue light darkened the room again. The nebulae outside had vanished. Almost human, that glass! The hotter it became outside, the darker the glass became--not only shielding the pilot's eyes but perfectly maintaining the insulation of the control room. Suddenly he jerked his head up, chilled as he stared at the mirrored wall in front of him. Reflected in the glass, a ghostly figure stood behind him in the galley door. "Hello." It was a feminine voice. Slowly, Norman swung his long legs around and stared at the girl, too astonished to speak. She was just a kid, about fifteen years old, wearing baggy white coveralls. A mop of honey-colored hair framed her pert freckled face.