There was no use whatever in investigating the wreck itself. The brilliance of the flare had been evidence enough to the physicist that that vessel and everything too near it had ceased to exist. It was lifeboats he was after. They were supposed to stick around to be rescued, but out here they probably would not--they would head for the nearest planet to be sure of air. Air was far more important than either water or food--and lifeboats, by the very nature of things, could not carry enough air. Approaching the charted spot, he sent out the universal "_survivors?_" call and swept all nearby space with his detectors--fruitlessly. But this was not conclusive. Since his cruiser was intended solely to get him safely from one planet to another, he had only low-power, short-range detectors. Of course, his communicator, weak as it was, could reach two or three times as far as any lifeboat could possibly be--but he had heard more than once of lifeboats, jammed full of women and children, being launched into space without anyone aboard who could operate even a communicator. It required only a few minutes to pick out the nearest sun. As he shot toward it he kept his detectors fanning out ahead, combing space mile by plotted cubic mile. And when he was halfway to that sun his plate revealed a lifeboat. It was very close to the solar system toward which Cloud was blasting--entering it--nearing one of the planets. Guided by his plate, he drove home a solid communicator beam. Still no answer! Either the lifeboat did not have a communicator--some of the older types didn't--or else it was smashed, or nobody aboard could run it. He'd have to keep his plate on them and follow them down to the ground. But what was that? Another boat on the plate? Not a lifeboat--too big, but not big enough to be a regular spaceship. It was coming out from the planet, apparently. To rescue? No--what the hell! The lug was beaming the lifeboat! "Let's go, you sheet-iron lummox!" the Blaster cried aloud, kicking in his every remaining watt of drive. Then, eyes upon his plate, he swore viciously, corrosively. CHAPTER TWO The Boneheads of Dhil The planet Dhil and its enormous satellite, called "Lune" in lieu of the utterly unpronounceable name its inhabitants gave it, are almost twin worlds, revolving about their common center of gravity and circling as one about their sun in its second orbit. In the third orbit revolves Uhal, a planet strikingly similar to Dhil in every respect of gravity, atmosphere, and climate. Furthermore, Dhilians and Uhalians are, to all interests and purposes, identical.[1] [Footnote 1: For the explanation of these somewhat peculiar facts, which is too long to go into here, the reader is referred to _Transactions of the Planetographical Society; Vol. 283, No. 11, p. 2745_.--E.E.S.]