The two boys made faces at each other, then Jon turned back to his computations. "I'm not as good at figuring these things out as Pop is, but I think Five is about a half billion miles from the sun. It's almost three hundred and fifty million miles from here, since it's further around the sun. But we'll cut across on a direct route." To his surprise, Jak came up and clapped him on the shoulder. "You're doing a grand job of astrogating, Chubby. I'm really proud of you." His voice was sincere and appreciative. "Yes," their mother came over and kissed Jon, rumpling his hair affectionately. "I've been unexpectedly relieved that you've managed to get us to each world so surely and to land us so gently. Though maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised, at that." She laughed gaily as her younger son flushed from this unexpected praise. "Aw, you guys are just saying that because I'm so wonderful." Jon tried to joke, but they could tell how deeply he felt their compliments. * * * * * A day later, when Jon announced they were approaching this outermost planet, the other two joined him in the control room, and all were soon deeply engrossed in the sight revealed to them in their visiplates. An hour or so later Jon was examining their spectro-analyzer, when he let out a yelp of excitement. "Hey, that fuel-stuff's showing up. It must've come from Five." And a moment later, "Listen to 'Annie' rattle. It sure is there--but plenty." They clustered about him, and even though they could not tell anything from the lines on the spectrograph that he pointed out, they could hear the machine chattering, and they grew excited from his exultation. "Miners can use the same type of automatics they use on Pluto to get it, can't they?" Jak asked. "I'd imagine so, although I really don't know anything about it. However, if we find we can use it, there's where they can get it, and that's the important thing." Their plates again showed only the blinding whiteness of ice they knew was frozen carbon dioxide rather than frozen water or snow. For even more than on Four, there could be no water here, even in its most frozen form. They cruised about above the surface, watching their instruments to find and record any metallic ore deposits, especially the new one. The terrain was so forbidding, so desolate, that even the irrepressible Jon felt no desire to land on it, or to go outside. Again their mother took most of the needed photographs, while the boys recorded all the other data of geography, size and conditions generally. Finally, Jon set the ship down on a fairly level plateau close to what they figured was the equator. "Well, here we are and that's all I care about," Jon announced with a shiver. "We'll use the distant hands to put out the marker. Then we'll see if we can find the location of that fuel deposit."