of shows in which a man asked a girl to marry him, and
they were all phoney. It's different, now that _I_ mean it! What's a
good way to ask you to marry me?"

Babs looked momentarily up into his face. She smiled ever so faintly.

"They're watching us from the ports," she said. "If you want my
viewpoint--If we were to wave to them that we'll be right back, we can
get some more of those fruits I cooked. It might be interesting to have
some to show them."

He scowled more deeply than before.

"I'm sorry you feel that way. But if that's it--"

"And on the way," said Babs. "When they're not watching, you might kiss
me."

They had a considerable pile of the red-fleshed fruits ready when the
ground had cooled enough for them to reach the landing-sling.

Once aboard the ship, Cochrane headed for the control-room, with Jamison
and Bell tagging after him. Bell had an argument.

"But the volcano's calmed down--there's only a wall of steam where the
lava hit the glaciers--and we could fix up a story in a couple of hours!
I've got background shots! You and Babs could make the story-scenes and
we'd have a castaway story! Perfect! The first true castaway story from
the stars--. You know what that would mean!"

Cochrane snarled at him.

"Try it and I'll tear you limb from limb! I've put enough of other
people's private lives on the screen! My own stays off! I'm not going to
have even a phoney screen-show built around Babs and me for people to
gabble about!"

Bell said in an injured tone:

"I'm only trying to do a good job! I started off on this business as a
writer. I haven't had a real chance to show what I can do with this sort
of material!"

"Forget it!" Cochrane snapped again. "Stick to your cameras!"

Jamison said hopefully:

"You'll give me some data on plants and animals, Mr. Cochrane? Won't
you? I'm doing a book with Bell's pictures, and--"

"Let me alone!" raged Cochrane.

He reached the control-room. Al, the pilot, sat at the controls with an
air of special alertness.

"You're all right? For our lined up trip, we ought to leave in about
twenty minutes. We'll be pointing just about right then."

"I'm all right," said Cochrane. "And you can take off when you please."
To Jones he said: "How'd you find us? I didn't think it could be done."

"Doctor Holden figured it out," said Jones. "Simple enough, but I was
lost! When the ground-shocks came, everybody else ran to the ship. We
waited for you. You didn'