any use of their achievement. Cochrane was not overwhelmed by the
achievement itself, though less than eighteen hours since the ship and
all its company had been aground on Luna, and now they were landed on a
new world twice as far from Earth as the Pole Star.

It is probable that Cochrane was not awed because he had a
television-producer's point of view. He regarded this entire affair as a
production. He was absorbed in the details of putting it across. He
looked at it from his own, quite narrow, professional viewpoint. It did
not disturb him that he was surrounded by a wilderness. He considered
the wilderness the set on which his production belonged, though he was
as much a city man as anybody else. He went back to the control-room.
With the ship standing on its tail that was the highest point, and as
the embers burned out and the smoke lessened it was possible to look out
into the night.

He stared at the dimly-seen trees beyond the burned area, and at the
dark masses of mountains which blotted out the stars. He estimated them,
without quite realizing it, in view of what they would look like on a
television screen. When light objects in the control-room rattled
slightly, he paid no attention. His rehearsal-studio had been rickety,
back home.

Babs seemed to be sleepless, too. There was next to no light where
Cochrane was--merely the monitor-lights which assured that the Dabney
field still existed, though blocked for use by the substance of a
planet. Babs arrived in the almost-dark room only minutes after
Cochrane. He was moving restlessly from one port to another, staring
out.

"I thought I'd tell you," Babs volunteered, "that Doctor Holden put some
algae from the air-purifier tanks in the airlock, and then opened the
outer door."

"Why?" asked Cochrane.

"Algae's Earth plant-life," explained Babs. "If the air is poisonous, it
will be killed by morning. We can close the outer door of the lock, pump
out the air that came from this planet, and then let air in from the
ship so we can see what happens."

"Oh," said Cochrane.

"And then I couldn't sleep," said Babs guilelessly. "Do you mind if I
stay here? Everybody else has gone to bed."

"Oh, no," said Cochrane. "Stay if you like."

He stared out at the dark. Presently he moved to another port. After a
moment he pointed.

"There's a glow in the sky there," he said curtly.

She looked. There was a vast curving blackness which masked the stars.
Beyond it