"From what we know or can guess, the planet is not inhabited or habitable. But that's guesswork. Until we can explore it as we've explored its satellites, we'll never know. And we'll never be able to explore Jupiter until some clever jasper invents an anti-gravitational shield--" "Say!" enthused Todd. "Now, there's a great idea, Sparks! I think I'll work on that!" I looked at him and groaned. "_You_ invent an anti-gravitational shield? What are you going to use for brains? Buttons? I've never known but one man in my life with the genius to pull that miracle--and he's dead. Lanse Biggs. I hope that wherever he is he can't hear you. He'll be rolling over in his grave so fast they'll call him 'Revolving Biggs.' Either that, or he'll come back and haunt you for daring to--" And then it happened. Todd, who had been listening to me petulantly, suddenly stiffened. His jaw dropped ... his eyes popped out like marbles on stalks ... and his hair climbed two full, quivering inches off his scalp. "S-s-sparks!" he wailed. "D-d-don't say that! Behind you!" Then he keeled over in a dead faint. I turned. My heart took a running leap for my lips, and I think I screamed. Because I was staring at a thin, wavering nebulosity--a form gray and ghastly--a transparent simulacrum of-- _Lancelot Biggs!_ * * * * * What happened next, I wouldn't rightly know. All I know is that for the first time I realized how a deep-rooted tree must feel when a pup comes sniffing at it with malice in his eyes. My brain said, "Get going, babies! Double-quick!" But my pedal extremities were as nerveless as a batch of yesterday's dough. But there was nothing wrong with my senses. On the contrary: they were as sharp as a creditor's letter. And for the first time in my life I realized that the old stories you hear about ghosts are on the up-and-up. For this shimmering wraith of Biggs carried along with it all the visual, audible and olfactory accoutrements with which the ghosts of lore are usually endowed. My ears hummed with a high, thin singing; a sort of weird, unearthly harmonic vibration. There was a biting odor in my nostrils, a scent so subtle I could not tell whether it were charnelly repugnant or just plain annoying. The phantom itself was gray, drab, colorless. Immobile. Tense, strained of visage. For a moment its white lips seemed to move-- Then it was gone! As quickly as it had come it was gone, and the paralysis left my limbs, and I was on my knees beside Todd, shaking him. He came out of his blackout howling. "Did you see him, Sparks? It was Biggs' ghost! Standing right there--" "What the hell's going on in here?" interrupted the irate voice of Cap Hanson. The door had burst open; he stood in the archway with Diane a few feet behind him. "What's all this, Mister Todd? The two of you groveling on the floor--drunk again, eh? Well, my two fine sirs--" Todd pulled himself to his feet uncertainly. His voice was cracked, incoherent.