Into the stratosphere, with the speed steadily and carefully increasing, the ship made its way. The broad Mississippi lay across the terrain beneath them, shrunk to the apparent dimensions of a silver thread. St. Louis was now only a varicolored, light-flecked blotch lying across the river’s course, with the smaller dark areas of suburbs close at hand.
“What a lot of Martian culture could be spread by dropping two or three roving bombs down there!” observed Sukune.
“Where is Mars from here?” asked Neil. The Japanese spun the dial of the television, showing an orange disk blotched with gray-green.
“There you are—seat of Earth’s troubles,” he said.
“What’s that lump traveling along between us and Mars?” was Bull Mike’s question.
“That appears to be the asteroid that strayed from its path, the astronomers say,” replied Sukune. “It’s not more than a mile or so in diameter, and its distance has been computed to be about a hundred and twelve million miles from the sun. That puts it nearly twenty million miles beyond the Earth’s orbit, or halfway between us and Mars. However, science doesn’t know much more about the thing. It’s a bit too far away for exploration just now, especially since all ships are now built for war-service. It ought to come into opposition with us in the spring of 2676.”
He delivered this little lecture with the utmost fluency, and his companions, less versed in sky-lore than he, listened admiringly. Bull Mike grinned and patted the Japanese on the back.
“Never knew you to be stumped by anything yet,” he cried. “No wonder the ancients used to be afraid that your people would conquer the world!”
Returning to the television, the three young men looked curiously at the new phenomenon in the heavens. They knew, of course, about the asteroids—fragments of exploded planets revolving just inside the path of mighty Jupiter—but this one, so far from its fellows, presented a different problem.
Leaving the atmospheric envelope, the ship sailed beyond danger of overheating from friction. Like a comet it rose through empty space. A glance from one port showed Earth at quarter-full, a warm, gleaming crescent that clasped a round globe of shadowy blue. Beside and beyond, glowed the white incandescence of the sun, its light intensified by the soft blackness of space. Jewel-like stars were scattered in all directions.
“If Commander Raws could only see us now!” said Bull Mike, boyishly delighted by a sense of freedom.
“If he could, he’d order us all into confinement,” Sukune reminded him. “Eh, Neil?”
Before them hung the full moon. Toward this they laid their course and, after twelve hours’ flight, they slowed down to drift like a vagrant bit of thistledown above the silent, dead valleys and mountain ranges. Once they dropped down and rested on the ashy surface of the satellite. In a few moments they were able to appreciate the depressed spirits that afflicted the occasional explorers of the lunar wilderness.
For, despite the heavenly-aspiring peaks, the abysmal depths, the far-reaching plains, there was a certain sameness about the moon’s scenery. They could see no movement save the shadow of their own craft sliding along beneath them. No green of grass, no brilliant color of flowers showed. No creatures scampered, crept or flew. There was not so much as a heat-flurry in the atmosphere—for there was no atmosphere. Nothing but the glaring white of sun-drenched rock, the inky black of airless shade.
“I wouldn’t live here for all the money in St. Louis,” said Bull Mike. “As far as that goes, I couldn’t.”
“I don’t see why not,” argued Sukune. “Mars’ two moons are smaller and rockier than this, and haven’t any more air, water or natural comfort. Yet the Martians have built cities under glass domes; pumped in artificial air, and settled right down to keep house.”
“That’s because they’re crowded at home,” was Bull Mike’s rebuttal. “Well, there’s room enough on Earth for me just now. Plenty of girls to keep me company and wine to keep me healthy and excitement to keep me occupied.”
They gladly left the Moon behind and continued their journey. They passed the time by eating part of the provisions they had brought along, by observing the heavens and by working practise problems in astronautics and space-maneuvers. At last they idled, a little more than half a million miles from Earth—twenty hours by direct space flight at top speed.
Neil was at the television. Suddenly he started violently and gestured to his comrades.
“Look here!” he cried. “A ship!”
“A patrol scout from the army,” groaned Bull Mike. “Now we’re in for it.”
“That’s no army craft!” declared Sukune when he saw the image. “Look at the lines of its hull, see that emblem on the side—it’s an armed Martian scout!”
“You’re right,” said Neil. “It’s just about on top of us, too. Let’s shake on out of here.”
Sukune jumped to the control board and began to strike a combination of keys. As quickly as possible he turned the nose of their ship back toward Earth. A glance through a port showed the Martian already within sight of the naked eye.
From the enemy ship came a sudden streak of flame. Desperately Sukune rattled the keys on the board. The Terrestrial craft writhed to one side, barely escaping the explosion of a roving bomb.
“The ratty lizard!” yelled Bull Mike, clenching a mammoth fist. “He sees that we’re not armed for space-fighting!”
“What’s he doing here, with Mars so far out of travel-shot, anyway?” demanded Neil.
Nobody answered, for another bomb exploded at that moment, seemingly just outside. It was soundless in the vacuum of space, but the force of the detonation shook the ship like a leaf in a gust of wind.
“No chance for escape,” said Sukune. He tapped the combination for a halt and rose from his seat.
“Now he’ll think he hit us,” he told the others. “Let’s play dead.”
“Why?” asked Bull Mike.
“It’s our only hope. Another bomb will do the business if we try to run. But he’ll want to capture our ship. If he sees it
