nd the
grin disappeared. "Wish I could take it for you, but...."

"But there are times when we've got to fight our own battles and bury
our own dead," she interrupted, gamely. "Cut off the rest of that power!
I'm _not_ going to be sick--I _won't_ be a--what do you spacehounds call
us poor earth-bound dubs who can't stand weightlessness--weight-fiends,
isn't it?"

"Yes; but you aren't...."

"I know I'm not, and I'm not going to be one, either! I'm all x,
Steve--it's not so bad now, really. I held myself together that time,
anyway, and I feel lots better now. Have you found Cantrell's Comet yet?
And why so sure all of a sudden that they can't find us? That power beam
still connects us to Ganymede, doesn't it? Maybe they can trace it."

"At-a-girl, ace!" he cheered. "I'll tell the world you're no
weight-fiend--you're a spacehound right. Most first-trippers, at this
stage of the game, wouldn't be caring a whoop whether school kept or
not, and here you're taking an interest in all kinds of things already.
You'll do, girl of my heart--no fooling!"

"Maybe, and maybe you're trying to kid somebody," she returned, eyeing
him intently. "Or maybe you just don't want to answer those questions
I asked you a minute ago."

[Illustration: _At the bottom of a shaft a section of the rocky wall
swung aside, revealing the yawning black mouth of a horizontal tunnel.
At intervals upon its roof there winked into being almost invisible
points of light. Along that line of lights the life-boats felt their
way, coming finally into a huge cavern...._]

"No, that's straight data, right on zero across the panel," he assured
her. "And as for your questions, they're easy. No, I haven't looked for
the comet yet, because we'll have to drift for a couple of days before
we'll be anywhere near where I think it is. No, they can't trace us,
because there is now nothing to trace, unless they can detect the
slight power we are using in our lights and so on--which possibility is
vanishingly small. Potentially, our beam still exists, but since we are
drawing no power, it has no actual present existence. See?"

"Uh-uh," she dissented. "I can't say that I can quite understand how
a beam can exist potentially and yet not be there actually enough to
trace. Why, a thing has to be actual or not exist at all--you can't
possibly have something that is nothing. It doesn't make sense. But
lay off those integrations of yours, please," as now armed with a
slate-pe