"You can settle your relations among yourselves," said Varret. "We chose Bailey partly because she has piloted rockets privately, and Phillips because he was a space engineer. Perhaps Brecken could handle the torpedoes--I do not know." He rubbed his chin uneasily. "Frankly, I find intimate discussion of the affair repulsive. I hope you will decide to do what is necessary for the welfare of Earth." He turned abruptly and left the control room. They heard distant voices exhorting him to hurry. [Illustration: 2] Brecken arose and crept furtively to the door. He leaned out to peer down the corridor. The nervous Truesdale bounced up to crowd behind him. Phillips and the girl looked at each other; she shrugged, and they too got to their feet. She turned to the instrument panels; and after a moment, Phillips joined her. "How have they got it?" he asked. "Controls locked?" "No," murmured Donna. "Don't need to; we're just coasting. Nice job, though. Fast as a racer, I imagine." "You know something about racers?" "I used to think I did," she answered, shortly. He saw pain darken her blue eyes and decided to probe no further. Instead, he wandered about, inspecting the instruments. A few minutes later, with a spaceman's indefinable alertness, he felt a change in the ship. "They still aboard?" he called to Truesdale, who remained at the door although Brecken had disappeared. The youth glanced over his shoulder but did not trouble to reply. Phillips' jaw set, and he took a quick step toward the other. Before he reached the doorway, however, Brecken returned from the corridor. Shouldering Truesdale aside, he strode into the control room. "Well," he announced, "the old fool hopped off like he said. Got a viewer in here?" "I have it on now," called Donna from the instrument desk. "There he goes." They gathered around the screen to watch. Near one edge was the image of another ship, with several spacesuited figures clustered around its entrance port. The girl made an adjustment, and the view crept over to the center of the screen just as the last of the figures vanished into the opening. Almost immediately, the other rocket slanted away on a new course. Donna followed it on the screen until the brief flashes of its jets were dimmed by a new radiance--the ruddy disk of Mars. "We _are_ where he said," she admitted. "Now what?" She looked at Phillips, who merely shrugged. "What do you make of it?" she insisted. "Pretty much as he said, probably," answered the engineer. "He's heading for Deimos, I suppose. I hear they're landscaping the whole moon--it's only about five miles in diameter--and building a new space station for a radio beacon and relay." "Does that log say anything about the plague ship?" asked Truesdale nervously. Donna scanned the observation record, then adjusted the viewer. The red radiance of Mars fled, to be replaced by a dimmer scene of distant stars.