I was able to nod my head. I had to get along with the bastard. Not only my life, but her safety depended on it. _Chapter 6_ In the end, Spartan himself arranged a schedule for Morrie and me, so we had no choice when we would serve our extra shifts. However, I spent equal time with Gail, Axel and Joel, as did Morrie. Gail and I had no opportunity to talk over our personal problems--concerning, mainly, Dr. Spartan--because he was always joining us in the control cabin. Axel was always engaged in radio astronomy, or trying to intercept terrestrial broadcasts, which were growing more feeble each day. Joel was uneasy in my presence. "I'm sorry about causing you all this trouble," he said. "But if I hadn't reported that infraction of rules to Dr. Spartan, he might have punished me." "Axel didn't report it and he wasn't punished," I said. "Dr. Spartan didn't suspect that Axel knew anything about it." Joel sighed. "I'm afraid my act has made me very unpopular with the rest of you." "Forget it," I said, "a trip to Mars isn't a popularity contest. If we return with good results, it won't matter. We'll all be fair-haired boys." But the incident had helped me decide that Joel would not be trustworthy if it came to a showdown against Spartan. On the other hand, it also helped prove that Axel was not a confidential aide to our chief. On the fourth extra tour of duty, I was in the control room with Axel. He was concentrating on the sounds he was picking up with our ultrahigh frequency receiver. Finally he ran the sounds he was getting through an oscilloscope. "Look at that, Bill!" he exclaimed, pointing to the strange wave pattern. "Pretty," I commented. All I saw was that it was something different. "That signal," said Axel, "was made by intelligent beings. It's not a natural radio pattern--the kind you'd get from a star or a nebula." I took my eyes off the instruments and looked at the pattern again. "Are you trying to tell me the Russians have invented a new kind of radio?" "The signal's coming from Mars," said Axel. "You're space crazy," I said. "There's nothing intelligent on Mars. Just a few plants." "We don't really know," said Axel. "I've been picking up these signals for several days. They're traveling twice the distance of the terrestrial signals. And the volume is greater. That would mean at least four or more times the power." "You've reported it to Spartan?" I asked. "I've entered it in the log book," said Axel. "I've also made a recording. It's not a voice signal, but it has an artificial wave pattern. It's some kind of radar wave--" "The Martians have spotted us?" I couldn't quite believe it. "They're gonna send out a fleet of spaceships and blast us before we land." "If they had spaceships they would have visited the earth," said Axel. "Then we're more advanced than they are. And if they're intelligent, we've nothing to fear. We'll probably get the keys to all the Martian cities."