ed to him. He grinned
amiably at all of us. "There's a third possibility, Captain. We can
reach Jupiter in about three months, if we turn now. It's offside, but
closer than anything else. From there, on a fast liner, we can be back
on Earth in another ten days."

Muller calculated, while Peters came up to discuss it. Then he nodded.
"Saturn or Jupiter, then. I'm not voting, of course. Bullard is
disqualified to vote by previous acts." He drew a low moan from the
sick figure of Bullard for that, but no protest. Then he nodded. "All
those in favor of Jupiter, your right hands please!"

I counted them, wondering why my own hand was still down. It made some
sort of sense to turn aside now. But none of our group was voting--and
all the others had their hands up, except for Dr. Napier. "Seven,"
Muller announced. "Those in favor of Saturn."

Again, Napier didn't vote. I hesitated, then put my hand up. It was
crazy, and Pietro was a fool to insist. But I knew that he'd never get
another chance if this failed, and....

"Eight," Muller counted. He sighed, then straightened. "Very well, we
go on. Dr. Pietro, you will have my full support from now on. In
return, I'll expect every bit of help in meeting this emergency. Mr.
Tremaine was correct; we cannot remain camps at war."

Pietro's goatee bobbed quickly, and his hand went out. But while most
of the scientists were nodding with him, I caught the dark scowl of
Grundy, and heard the mutters from the deckhands and the engine men.
If Muller could get them to cooperate, he was a genius.

Pietro faced us, and his face was serious again. "We can hasten the
seeding of the plants a little, I think, by temperature and
light-and-dark cycle manipulations. Unfortunately, these aren't
sea-algae plants, or we'd be in comparatively little trouble. That was
my fault in not converting. We can, however, step up their efficiency
a bit. And I'm sure we can find some way to remove the carbon dioxide
from the air."

"How about oxygen to breathe?" Peters asked.

"That's the problem," Pietro admitted. "I was wondering about
electrolyzing water."

Wilcox bobbed up quickly. "Can you do it on AC current?"

Lomax shook his head. "It takes DC."

"Then that's out. We run on 220 AC. And while I can rectify a few
watts, it wouldn't be enough to help. No welders except monatomic
hydrogen torches, even."

Pietro looked sicker than before. He'd obviously been counting on
that. But he turned to Bulla