"Oh," replied Biggs negligently, "that's all taken care of. We've plotted a new trajectory around it. We should see Themis again in a moment--Aaah!" He breathed a sigh of satisfaction. "There she is! Nice looking little satellite, isn't it!" And true enough, Themis was beginning to appear in the vision plate before us. A weird looking sight it was. A thin sliver of terrain at first ... then widening, growing into a full sized cosmic body as it stopped being occulted by its phenomenal little companion. Biggs punched the intercommunicating stud and spoke to the engine room. "All right, Mac," he called. "You can cut the V-I. Prepare to land in about fifty minutes." Then he turned to us again. "Remarkable thing, what? Some day when we're not so busy we'll have to drop jets on that invisible moon, eh? Should be an interesting visit to make." The skipper groaned feebly. "Interestin'! He finds an invisible moon, figures a trajectory around it, then says it's--Oooh! Let me out of here! I'm feelin' heat-waves!" I grinned at him consolingly. "Cheer up," I told him. "I know just how you feel. Only it's not the heat ... it's the humility." So that was that. The next hour was taken up with routine stuff. Decelerating to atmo velocity, cruising over Themis until we located the capital city of Kraalbur, where the Thagwar maintained his royal residence, dropping to a stern-jet landing ... that was all child's play for a spaceman like Lt. Lancelot Biggs. * * * * * Thus it was that a short while later, armed to the teeth and ready for any eventuality, our foray party of ten men stood in the lock of the _Saturn_, listening to Hanson's final instructions. "Be quiet," he advised us, "be calm ... but above all, be careful. These Themisites is as untrustworthy as three-of-a-kind in a gamblin' joint. Our orders is to improve relations, not make 'em worse ... so act accordin'ly. We'll treat them exactly like they meet us. If they greet us friendly, we'll be nice. But if they get tough--" "Well?" asked one of the crew. "Give 'em the works!" said the Old Man succinctly, and nodded to his son-in-law. "O.Q., Lanse. Open up!" The airlock wheezed asthmatically, and we stepped out upon the soil of the satellite Themis. A huge mob of natives had gathered around to greet us. They were a weird looking outfit. Sort of like men on horses, you might say, or like those old Centaurs you read about in mythology books. Maybe that's where the legend of Centaurs originated; I don't know. The more man travels the spaceways, the more he discovers races of beings similar to the freaks and curiosities recorded in ancient myths. Lanse Biggs believes that once upon a time, thousands of years ago, before Earth's old moon crashed, destroying the civilization then existent, Man knew the secret of spacetravel, and legend is a record of things once seen and known. But I wouldn't know about that. I'm just a radioman....