was thinking more of its home," said Wade. "How about calling it
Terrestrian?"

"Well--it's your turn, Fuller--you designed it. What do you suggest for
your masterpiece?" asked Arcot.

"I was thinking also of its home--the home it will never leave. I like
to think that we might find people on Venus, and I would like to have a
name on it that might be translatable into more friendly and less
foreign terms--why not call it Solarite?"

"Solarite--a member of the solar system--it will be that, always. It
will be a world unto itself when it makes its trips--it will take up an
orbit about the sun--a true member of the solar system. I like it!"
Arcot turned to the others. "How about it?" It was agreed upon
unanimously.

"But I'm still curious about that glass bottle, so carefully sealed."
Morey commented with a puzzled smile. "What's in it? Some kind of gas?"

"Wrong--no gas--practically nothing at all, in fact. What more
appropriate for christening a space ship than a bottle of hard vacuum?

"We can't have a pretty girl christen this ship, that's sure. A flying
bachelor's apartment christened by a mere woman? Never! We will have the
foreman of the works here do that. Since we can't have the ship slide
down the ways or anything, we will get inside and move it when he
smashes the bottle. But in the meantime, let's have a symbol set in
contrasting metal on the bow. We can have a blazing sun, with nine
planets circling it, the Earth indicated conspicuously; and below it the
word SOLARITE."

III

It was shortly after noon when the newly christened _Solarite_ left on
its first trip into space. The sun was a great ball of fire low in the
west when they returned, dropping plummet-like from the depths of space,
the rush of the air about the hull, a long scream that mounted from a
half-heard sound in the outer limits of the Earth's atmosphere, to a
roar of tortured air as the ship dropped swiftly to the field and shot
into the hanger. Instantly the crew darted to the side of the great
cylinder as the door of the ship opened.

Fuller appeared in the opening, and at the first glimpse of his face,
the hanger crew knew something was wrong. "Hey, Jackson," Fuller called,
"get the field doctor--Arcot had a little accident out there in space!"
In moments the man designated returned with the doctor, leading him
swiftly down the long metal corridor of the _Solarite_ to Arcot's room
aboard.

There was a mean-looking cut in A