Jon felt better, though he knew that a dis-ray blast this close to him would fricassee him too. He told Doc so. "What's the difference?" inquired Doc, the first note of their doom in his voice. "Fast or slow--take your choice." "Take your pictures, ground-hog," grunted Jon. "I'll do the heavy thinking around here." "Don't sprain your neck with it, Fly-boy." It was that dull black hopelessness in the back of Jon's mind that gave him the bravado that he showed then. He took a quick step toward the sphere. "Scat," he snarled savagely, and waved his arms. "Shoo! Get lost!" Then his mouth gaped. It was gone! Vanished! "Doc!" he yelled, "did you see that?" "Yup," came Doc's matter-of-fact voice. "Got it all here on the tape. Blip! Gone, just like before." "That isn't what I mean," protested Jon. His brain was staggered by the half-formed thoughts that crowded it. "Now get this, Doc." He shouted, "Come back here! Right here in front of me." For the space of three slow heartbeats nothing happened. Then, with the air of having been there all the time, the sphere materialized. Breathing carefully, Jon said. "Roll toward me." The sphere hesitated a second, then came obediently toward him. "Stop!" said Jon. The sphere was stock-still in the instant. "Doc," cried Jon, excitement cracking his voice, "these star-blasted boogers can think!" "Come on in out of the sun, Fly-boy," said Doc wearily. "The heat's getting you. It's coincidence. Or you moved to attract it, or something." "No," protested Jon. "Now look. I'm going to cut off my trans, but I'll call my shots first. I'm going to have it roll left, then right, then back to center. Got that? Left, right, and back to center. Over and out." And Jon cut off his transmitter. * * * * * He stood stock-still and formed the impression in his mind. _Now roll to my left_, he thought. The blank sphere moved to the spot indicated. _Now to my right._ The huge sphere obeyed the mental commands with the joyous precision of a rookie Space Patrolman who has just learned his Parade Manual. For fifteen minutes Jon put the hulking ball through its paces, and then as suddenly as it had appeared, the rapport was lost. The sphere trundled off across the plain, oblivious to Jon's commands, and finally settled to a hemisphere in the distance. Jon opened his trans. "Yah," came Doc's disgusted voice. "He never jumped through no hoop." "Drop it," retorted Jon curtly. "He got tired of it. Did you get it all down?" "Every bit of it. Better come on in now, and we'll look it over." Jon was suddenly tired, and he thought of the soft chairs in the Flight Room. But there would be that damned Geiger clicking, and the accumulator needle working into the red. Jon knew suddenly that he was not going back to the ship. _What's the percentage in waiting for it_, he thought, _when I might as well be taking a look-see over the hill? Oh, come now Jon-me-lad, what hill?_