e to the keys. There was another flaw to be
dealt with. The discrepancy was one the course-calculator had clearly
pointed out, but he had overlooked it in his haste to get underway.
The solution he had followed was the only possible one--that was still
quite true. But, use of it only plunged him into a second predicament.

This new course, said the equations, a course which would require all
the remaining fuel to maintain, would steer the ship into a permanent
orbit around the earth--an ellipse with the point of apogee far beyond
Luna. He now had the certainty of continued life--for a few more days,
until his provisions gave out....

Again he cursed the name of Garth. But for the man's treachery he
would be well on his way to Venus. Now, he was a helpless trapped mass
of protoplasm, protected from his bitter airless environment only by
the same steel walls of the cage that held him....

* * * * *

Throughout the next twenty-four hours, as the nature of the elliptical
orbit he had entered became more and more apparent, Dollard fought off
sleep while his frightened brain racked and racked again its scattered
fund of knowledge for an answer to the new problem.

But at last, the narcosis of cellular exhaustion completely overcame
him and he slept.

When he awoke, he was chilled and hungry. The ship had passed into the
shadow of Luna and its bulkheads no longer conducted heat to the
convecting air envelope inside from the outer plates, generally warmed
by solar radiations. It took him sometime to get warm again.

He pondered anew his predicament. It would be useless to plead for
help to the Terran space authorities. All interplanetary flights had
been grounded since the Asiatics had scattered the epidemic over the
western world only to have it re-invade their own borders; all the
national governments were fighting rebellion and plague
simultaneously, and most important of all as far as Dollard was
concerned, he had effectively outlawed himself from the jurisdiction
of all governments by his acts of murder and his treason in fleeing
Terra. No, there could be no help from the officials of earth.

Not in present years anyhow, he thought. But, wait! Suppose this plague
should ultimately die out or be conquered. Then, wouldn't space travel be
resumed? If not by the human race, by its successor--whichever race or
species, if such could happen, that mutated successfully enough to produce
a pl