hich
were his special charge, but beyond that, he was limited in both
sympathy and imagination.

* * * * *

Captain Renner looked from face to face.

"We were lucky to set down safely," he said to them all. "We might have
been caught too far out for a landing. It is night now, and I am going
to get some rest. Tomorrow we will see what kind of a world this is."

He left the control room, and went down the corridor toward his
quarters. The others watched him go. None of them made a move to leave
their seats.

"What about the fuel pack?" David asked.

"Just what he said," Farrow answered him. "It's exhausted. Done for! We
can run auxiliary equipment for a long time to come, but no more star
drive."

"So we just stay here until we're rescued," David said.

"A fine chance for that!" Farrow's voice grew bitter again. "Our captain
has landed us out here on the rim of the galaxy where there won't be
another ship for a hundred years!"

"I don't understand the man," Beeson said suddenly, looking around him
belligerently. "What are we doing out here anyway?"

"Extended Exploration," said Thorne. "It's a form of being put out to
pasture. Renner's too old for the Service, but he's still a strong and
competent man. So they give him a ship, and a vague assignment, and let
him do just about what he wants. There you have it."

He took a cigar from his pocket, and looked at it fondly.

"While they last, gentlemen," he said, holding it up. He snipped the
end, and lit it carefully. His own hair had grown grey in the Service,
and, in a way, the reason for his assignment to the ship was the same as
Renner's.

"I think," he said slowly, "that Captain Renner is looking for
something."

"But for what?" Beeson demanded. "He has taken us to every
out-of-the-way, backward planet on the rim. And what happens? We land.
We find the natives. We are kind to them. We teach them something, and
leave them a few supplies. And then Renner loses interest, and we go
on!"

"Perhaps it is for something in himself," David offered.

"Perhaps he will find it here," Thorne murmured. "I'm going to bed."

He got up from his seat.

David stood up, and went over to one of the observation ports. He ran
back the radiation screen. The sky outside was very black, and filled
with alien stars. He could see absolutely nothing of the landscape about
them because of the dark. It was a poor little planet. It hadn't even a
m