"Let's face it--Brandon is dead. Must have burned with the ship, at least that's the way the report will read. Get me, Reinhardt?" "Yes, sir," the disembodied voice of Reinhardt replied quietly. "We're going to set her down on a solid piece of ground near one of the oceans." There was a pause and Brandon could almost see Colonel Towers drawing up to his full height. "I'm going to be the first man to set foot on a planet of another solar system. Know what that means, Reinhardt?" "A quantum jump sir?" "Right. Leap-frogging ahead of the Reds. Wait till they read the name Colonel John Towers--maybe _General_ John Towers--_General_." Brandon opened his eyes. Sirius was turning the sky to gray, trimming a few scattered clouds with gold. As he stared at the sky, Sirius rose with a brassy glare. Near it he could see its white hot dwarf star companion. It was going to be a real scorcher, he decided; worse than any desert on Earth. He sat up stiffly. On the tele-talkie screen, Reinhardt, alone in the radio room, was calling quietly for Brandon. The bulkhead door swung open and Towers poked his head through. "Knock that off," said Towers sternly, "and take your landing station." As Reinhardt rose to his feet, Brandon reached over and turned off the set. Brandon took a deep breath. His head spun and for the first time he realized that he was still alive. He gazed across the shimmering desert to a ridge of scrubby hills. Blue mountains rose up beyond them. Great floes of black lava had rolled down onto the desert floor at some distant time. They were spotted with clumps of gray grass even as was the desert. The hills were studded with weird trees standing stiff, branches outstretched, like an army of scarecrows. The air of Sirius Three was doing strange things to him. Two of the trees seemed to be moving. He swayed and sat heavily. As he watched through a haze of red dust whipped up by the morning breeze, the two trees came closer, turned into men wearing desert uniforms and leaned over him. "Are you okay?" one of them asked. Brandon said nothing. "We saw you from our observation station over on the hill," said the other pointing. They helped Brandon to his feet and gave him a swig of cool, sweet water from a canteen. "I'm Captain Brandon, of the Astro One." "Astro One?" The man removed his pith helmet to wipe his brow and Brandon noticed the gleaming US insignia on the front of the helmet. "The Astro One left Earth thirteen years ago," the man said. "Only four years by RT," Brandon said. The man smiled and put his helmet back on his head. "A lot of things have happened since you left. There was a war which we won, and I guess you guys were almost forgotten. And there was a lot of technological development." "You mean you had a quantum jump?" asked Brandon parroting Colonel Towers' favorite expression.