earance?

Mason's face was cold as ice. "Come with me, you two," he said. "We're
going to get the answer to this right now."

We went along the passage to the circular staircase. We climbed the
steps, passed through the scuttle and came to the door of the bridge
cuddy. Mason drew the bar and we passed in. Norris was bent over the
chart table. He looked up sharply at the sound of our steps.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" he said.

It didn't take Mason long to explain. When he had finished, he stood
there, jaw set, eyes smouldering.

Norris paled. Then quickly he got control of himself, and his old bland
smile returned.

"I expected you to blunder into Klae's body one of these days," he said.
"The explanation is quite simple. Klae had been ill for many months, and
he knew his time was up. His one desire in life was to go on this
expedition with me, and he made me promise to bury him at the site of
our new colony. The pact was between him and me, and I've followed it to
the letter, telling no one."

Mason's lips curled in a sneer. "And just what makes you think we're
going to believe that story?" he demanded.

Norris lit a cigar. "It's entirely immaterial to me whether you believe
it or not."

But the story was believed, especially by the women, to whom the
romantic angle appealed and Mason's embryonic mutiny died without being
born, and the _Marie Galante_ sailed on through uncharted space toward
her ninth and last landing.

As the days dragged by and no word came from the bridge cuddy,
restlessness began to grow amongst us. Rumor succeeded rumor, each story
wilder and more incredible than the rest. Then just as the tension had
mounted to fever pitch, there came the sickening lurch and grinding
vibration of another landing.

Norris dispensed with his usual talk before marching out from the ship.
After testing the atmosphere with the ozonometer, he passed out the heat
pistols and distributed the various instruments for computing
radioactivity and cosmic radiation.

"This is the planet Nizar," he said shortly. "Largest in the field of
the sun Ponthis. You will make your survey as one group this time. I
will remain here."

He stood watching us as we marched off down the cliff side. Then the
blue _hensorr_ trees rose up to swallow him from view. Mason swung along
at the head of our column, eyes bright, a figure of aggressive action.
We had gone but a hundred yards when it became apparent that, as a