Dr. Mueller caught her breath. "Our adjustment to space is our private
concern. I don't think you could understand."

"Maybe not, but we could try. To _us_, of course, complete adjustment
is a living death."

"To us, it was a matter of staying alive."

Halter turned aside from disagreement, searching for common ground.
"You'd be protected here, you know. You deserve that."

"Who'd protect us from you?" asked the captain. "Life in the Solar
System is destructive."

* * * * *

Brady, the lieutenant, leaned forward. "You've failed--all through the
whole System."

"We haven't finished living in it," said Halter. "Who can pin a label
on us of success or failure?"

Miss Gordon, dietician and televisor, said quietly, "There are some
records I'd like to show you. We compiled them while the _Alpha_ was
drifting back into the System."

Halter watched the frail arm reach out and turn a dial.

A point of light grew on the screen in Colonel Halter's office.

"Pluto," said her quiet voice.

Halter watched the lightspot focus on a mountain of ice. Men in suits
of steel were crawling up its frozen side. Other men on the mountain's
top were sighting guns. The men below were sighting guns. Yellow fire
spurted from the top and the sides of the mountain, blending into a
lake of fire. There was a great hissing and a rushing torrent of
boiling water and rolling, twisting steel-clad bodies. The mountain of
ice melted like a lump of lard in a hot frying pan. Only the steel
bodies glinted, motionless, in the pale wash of sunlight.

Halter watched the brightness die and another lightspot grow one moon.
The focus shifted in close to a fleet of shining silver ships.

Then another fleet dropped from close above, hanging still, and there
were blinding flashes engulfing each ship below, one after the other,
until there were only the shining ships above, climbing into the dusk
glow of the Sun.

The glowing circle of bright-ringed Saturn was already rushing toward
Colonel Halter from far back in the depth of screen. The focus shifted
onto the planet's glaring surface. Men in the uniform of Earth
soldiers were rushing out of transparent shell houses and staring in
panic as the missiles plummeted through the shells and erupted clouds
of steam which spouted up from mile-deep craters and there was nothing
but the steam and the holes and the white cold.

Jupiter made a hole in the blackness, with eleven