lim, and surprisingly young. There were almost
childish lines to the bare shoulders revealed by her low golden gown.
Her thoroughbred grace and beauty were spoiled for Kenniston by the
bored look in her clear dark eyes and the faintly disdainful droop of
her mouth.

The chubby, rosy youth beside her goggled in simulated amazement and
terror at the battered green Jovian behind Kenniston. He set down his
glass with a theatrical gesture of horror.

"This Martian liquor has got me!" he exclaimed. "I can see a little
green man!"

Holk Or started wrathfully forward. "Why, that young pup--"

Kenniston hastily restrained him with a gesture. He turned back to the
table. Some of the girls were giggling.

"Be quiet, Robbie," Gloria Loring was telling the chubby young
comedian. She turned her cool gaze back to Kenniston. "Well?"

"Miss Loring, I heard down at the spaceport that you are the charterer
of that small cruiser, the _Sunsprite_," Kenniston explained. "I need
a craft like that very badly. If you would part with her, I'd be glad
to pay almost any price for your charter."

* * * * *

The girl looked at him in astonishment. "Why in the world should I let
you have our cruiser?"

Kenniston said earnestly, "Your party could travel just as well and a
lot more comfortably by liner. And getting a cruiser like that is a
life-or-death business for me right now."

"I'm not interested in your business, Mr. Kenniston," drawled Gloria
Loring. "And I certainly don't propose to alter our plans just to help
a stranger out of his difficulties."

Kenniston flushed from the cool rebuke. He stood there, suddenly
feeling a savage dislike for the whole pampered group of them.

"Beside that," the girl continued, "we chose the cruiser for this trip
because we wanted to get off the beaten track of liner routes, and see
something new. We're going from here out to Jupiter's moons."

Kenniston perceived that these bored, spoiled youngsters were out here
hunting for new thrills on the interplanetary frontier. His dislike of
them increased.

A clean-cut, sober-faced young man who seemed older and more serious
than the rest of the party, was speaking to the heiress.

"Unhardened space-travellers like us are likely to get hit by
gravitation paralysis out in the outer planets, Gloria," he was saying
to the heiress. "I don't think we ought to go farther out than Mars."

Gloria looked at him mockingly. "If yo