One minute, there was the small clearing, green grass waving gently in the warm afternoon sunshine. Then the very heavens seemed to split open and a giant thunderbolt came hurtling into the ground. The concussion almost knocked them off their feet. And the next minute-- It was a long, silvery, torpedo-shaped hull, completely filling the small clearing. Rocket tubes jutted from its tapering tail; narrow fins creased its smooth flanks. A round airlock door stood open, waiting. [Illustration: Joe raised the strange robot globe and depressed the keys. Out on the plain a space ship came into being.] "A--A _rocket ship_!" Bowen gasped. "More than that!" Joe was grinning as he moved out toward the open airlock. "She's equipped with water and air purifying devices and food synthesis tanks that'll supply one man as long as ten years! She has antigravity equipment that can lift her right off the Earth--and a rocket drive that'll accelerate to a velocity of two hundred and seventy-eight miles per second! That's roughly a million miles an hour! That means I can reach Mars' orbit in just over thirty hours!" "But--but what're you going to _do_ with it?" Barbara stammered. "Do?" Joe leaped into the airlock, his robot clutched under his arm, and faced them with a laugh. "I'm going to the only place I'll be safe, Barbara! And I'll find out who built the canals on Mars! And what mysteries lie below the cloud-blanket of Venus! And whether any of the moons of Jupiter are inhabitable--" "Y-you mean," Bowen sputtered, "you're _going into space_?" Barbara shook her head. "But--not _alone_!" A shadow flicked across Joe's young features. Then he grinned easily. "Why not? I'm no longer safe among men--" "But you _can't_ go alone!" she stormed. "You--Father! _I'm going with him!_" "Barbara!" Bowen shouted. "What on earth--" "Not on earth!" she cried, leaping forward. She landed in the narrow airlock, thrusting Joe back into its metal confines. She whirled back to her father, grabbing the door's levers to steady herself. "Not for long!" she added breathlessly. "Don't you see, father? He has to go--but he _can't go alone_! Someone has to be with him, to take care of him, to see that he eats his meals and--and I'm going with him! Goodbye, father! We'll--we'll be back!" And tugging, panting, she swung the heavy door closed. It swung flush into the smooth, metal hull. James Bowen stood transfixed, on the edge of the clearing. Behind him was the small, white house with the red roof and the little garden in front, as he watched the sleek, torpedo-shaped spaceship rise effortlessly from the ground and go skimming across the lake, climbing higher and higher until it dwindled to a silvery speck in the clear blue sky and vanished.