he growled cheerfully. "Here I'm having a
first rate time for myself, swimming and planing along the Riviera,
with two more weeks leave ahead of me--and I get a call from the Old
Man to report to you. What excuse have you for your crime?"

"A junket to Jupiter," said Brand. "Would you call that a good
excuse?"

"Jupiter!" exclaimed Dex. "Wouldn't you know it? Of course you'd have
to pick a spot four hundred million miles away from all that grand
swimming I was having!"

"Would you like to go back on leave, and have me choose someone else?"
inquired Brand solemnly.

"Well, no," said Dex hastily. "Now that I'm here, I suppose I might as
well go through with it."

Brand laughed. "Try and get you out of it! I know your attitude toward
a real jaunt. And it's a real jaunt we've got ahead of us, too, old
boy. We're going to the red spot. Immediately."

* * * * *

Dex's sandy eyebrows shot up. "The red spot! That's where Coblenz and
Heiroy were lost!"

"And Journeyman," added Brand. "He's the latest victim of whatever's
in the hell-hole."

Dex whistled. "Journeyman too! Well, all I've got to say is that
whatever's there must be strong medicine. Journeyman was a damn fine
man, and as brave as they come. Have you any idea what it's all
about?"

"Not an idea. Nobody has. We're to go and find out--if we can. Are you
all ready?"

"All ready," said Dex.

"So am I. We'll start at eleven o'clock in one of the Old Man's best
cruisers. Meanwhile, we might as well go and hunt up a dinner
somewhere, to fortify us against the synthetic pork chops and bread
we'll be swallowing for the next fortnight."

They went out; and at ten minutes of eleven reported at the great
space ship hangars north of New York, with their luggage, a
conspicuous item of which was a chess board to help while away the
long, long days of spacial travel. Brand then paused a little while
for a final check-up on directions.

They clambered into the tiny control room and shut the hermetically
sealed trap-door. Brand threw the control switch and precisely at
eleven o'clock the conical shell of metal shot heavenward, gathering
such speed that it was soon invisible to human eyes. He set their
course toward the blazing speck that was Jupiter, four hundred million
miles away; and then reported their start by radio to Commander
Stone's night operator.

The investigatory expedition to the ominous red spot of the giant of
the