But Mars. For centuries men had dreamed of Mars and written of Mars with its canals and dead cities, with its ancient men and strange animals. Everyone _knew_ there was or had been life on Mars. The flaming rockets reached Mars, and the canals became volcanic crevices, and the dead cities became jagged peaks of red stone, and the endless sands were smooth, smooth, smooth, untouched by feet of living creatures. There was plant-life, a species of green-red lichen in the Polar regions. But nowhere was there real life. Then Venus, with its dust and wind. No life there. Not even the stars to make one think of home. Only the dust and wind, a dark veil of death screaming eternally over hot dry land. And Jupiter, with its seas of ice; and hot Mercury, a cracked, withered mummy of a planet, baked as hard and dry as an ancient walnut in a furnace. Next, the airless, rocky asteroids, and frozen Saturn with its swirling ammonia snows. And last, the white, silent worlds, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. World after world, all dead, with no sign of life, no reminder of life, and no promise of life. Thus the loneliness had grown. It was not a child of Earth. It was not born in the hearts of those who scurried along city pavements or of those in the green fields or of those in the cool, clean houses. It was a child of the incredible distances, of the infinite night, of emptiness and silence. It was born in the hearts of the slit-eyed men, the oldish young men, the spacemen. For without life on other worlds, where was the sky’s challenge? Why go on and on to discover only worlds of death? The dream of the spacemen turned from the planets to the stars. Somewhere in the galaxy or in other galaxies there _had_ to be life. Life was a wonderful and precious thing. It wasn’t right that it should be confined to a single, tiny planet. If it were, then life would seem meaningless. Mankind would be a freak, a cosmic accident. And now the _Wanderer_ was on the first interstellar flight, hurtling through the dark spaces to Proxima Centauri. Moving silently, as if motionless, yet at a speed of 160,000 miles a second. And ahead loomed the great, gray planet, the only planet of the sun, growing larger, larger, each instant.... ———— A gentle, murmuring hum filled the ship. The indicator lights on the control panel glowed like a swarm of pink eyes. "Deceleration compensator adjusted for 12 G’s, sir," reported Lieutenant Gunderson. Captain Wiley nodded, still studying the image of the planet. "There—there’s something else, Captain." "Yes?" "It’s Brown, sir. He’s drunk." Captain Wiley turned, a scowl on his hard, lined face. "Drunk? Where’d he get the stuff?" "He saved it, sir, saved it for nine years. Said he was going to drink it when we discovered life." "We haven’t discovered life yet."