He ripped the emergency blaster from its wall mounting, pressed it to the magnetic latch of the sealed cabin door and pressed the stud. An instant later he was leading his frightened wife, Estelle, out through the smoke. The fire was quickly extinguished after that and the wiring spliced. Then when the others had drifted off, Mason called Brandt and me aside. "We've been wondering for a long time what happened to Ganeth-Klae, the Martian inventor who worked with Norris to invent _Indurate_," he said very quietly. "Well, we don't need to wonder any more. He's in there." Brandt and I stepped forward over the sill--and drew up short. Ganeth-Klae was there all right, but he would never trouble himself about making a voyage in a locked cabin. His rigid body was encased in a transparent block of amber-colored solidifex, the after-death preservative used by all Martians. Both of us recognized his still features at once, and in addition his name-tattoo, required by Martian law, was clearly visible on his left forearm. * * * * * For a brief instant the discovery stunned us. Klae dead? Klae whose IQ had become a measuring guide for the entire system, whose Martian head held more ordinary horse sense, in addition to radical postulations on theoretical physics, than anyone on the planets. It wasn't possible. And what was the significance of his body on Norris' ship? Why had Norris kept its presence a secret and why had he given out the story of Klae's disappearance? Mason's face was cold as ice. "Come with me, you two," he said. "We're going to get the answer to this right now." We went along the passage to the circular staircase. We climbed the steps, passed through the scuttle and came to the door of the bridge cuddy. Mason drew the bar and we passed in. Norris was bent over the chart table. He looked up sharply at the sound of our steps. "What is the meaning of this intrusion?" he said. It didn't take Mason long to explain. When he had finished, he stood there, jaw set, eyes smouldering. Norris paled. Then quickly he got control of himself, and his old bland smile returned. "I expected you to blunder into Klae's body one of these days," he said. "The explanation is quite simple. Klae had been ill for many months, and he knew his time was up. His one desire in life was to go on this expedition with me, and he made me promise to bury him at the site of our new colony. The pact was between him and me, and I've followed it to the letter, telling no one." Mason's lips curled in a sneer. "And just what makes you think we're going to believe that story?" he demanded. Norris lit a cigar. "It's entirely immaterial to me whether you believe it or not." But the story was believed, especially by the women, to whom the romantic angle appealed and Mason's embryonic mutiny died without being born, and the _Marie Galante_ sailed on through uncharted space toward her ninth and last landing.