position. The slit in the dome was opened to the afternoon sky,
revealing the lunar disc in its daytime faintness.

"You can see it just as well in daylight?" Bart asked as his friend
peered through the eyepiece of the telescope and continued his
adjustments.

"Sure, the surface is just as bright as at night. Doesn't seem so to
your eye, but it's different through the telescope. Here, take a
look."

* * * * *

Bart squinted through the eyepiece and saw a huge crater with a
shadowed spire in its center. Like a shell hole in soft earth it
appeared--a great splash that had congealed immediately it was made.
The cross-hairs of the eyepiece were centered on a small circular
shadow near its inner rim.

"That," Van was saying, "is a prominent crater near the Mare Nubium.
The spot under the cross-hairs is that from which I have obtained the
diamonds--and other things. Watch this now, Bart."

The young broker straightened up and saw that his friend was removing
the cover from a crystal bowl that was attached to the lower end of
the copper tube that pointed to the heavens at the same ascension and
declination as the telescope. The air of the room vibrated to a
strange energy when he closed a switch that lighted a dozen vacuum
tubes in the apparatus that lined the wall.

"You say you bring the stuff here with a light ray?" he asked.

"No, I said with the speed of light. This tube projects a ray of
vibrations--like directional radio, you know--and this ray has a
component that disintegrates the object it strikes and brings it back
to us as dissociated protons and electrons which are reassembled in
the original form and structure in this crystal bowl. Watch."

A misty brilliance filled the bowl's interior. Intangible shadowy
forms seemed to be taking shape within a swirling maze of ethereal
light that hummed and crackled with astounding vigor. Then, abruptly,
the apparatus was silent and the light gone, revealing an odd object
that had taken form in the bowl.

"A starfish!" Bart gasped.

"Yeah, and fossilized." Van handed it to him and he took it in his
fingers gingerly as if expecting it to burn them.

* * * * *

The thing was undoubtedly a starfish, and of light, spongy stone. Its
color was a pale blue and the ambulacral suckers were clearly
discernible on all five rays.

"Lord! You're sure this is from the moon?" Bart turned the starfish
over in his