on its way under the
control of the instruments that would guide it across all the millions
of miles of space and land it on Venus with unerring certainty. The
photo-electric telescopic eye watched the planet constantly, keeping the
ship surely and accurately on the course that would get them to the
distant planet in the shortest possible time.

Work thereafter became routine requiring a minimum of effort, and the
men could rest and use their time to observe the beauties of the skies
as no man had ever seen them during all the billions of years of time
that this solar system has existed. The lack of atmosphere made it
possible to use a power of magnification that no terrestrial telescope
may use. The blurred outlines produced by the shifting air prohibits
magnifications of more than a few hundred diameters, but here in space
they could use the greatest power of their telescope. With it they could
look at Mars and see it more clearly than any other man had ever seen
it, despite the fact that it was now over two hundred million miles
away.

But though they spent much time taking photographs of the planets and of
the moon, and in making spectrum analyses of the sun, time passed very
slowly. Day after day they saw measured on the clocks, but they stayed
awake, finding they needed little sleep, for they wasted no physical
energy. Their weightlessness eliminated fatigue. However, they
determined that during the twelve hours before reaching Venus they must
be thoroughly alert, so they tried to sleep in pairs. Arcot and Morey
were the first to seek slumber--but Morpheus seemed to be a mundane god,
for he did not reward them. At last it became necessary for them to
take a mild opiate, for their muscles refused to permit their tired
brains to sleep. It was twelve hours later when they awoke, to relieve
Wade and Fuller.

They spent most of the twelve hours of their routine watch in playing
games of chess. There was little to be done. The silver globe before
them seemed unchanging, for they were still so far away it seemed little
larger than the moon does when seen from Earth.

But at last it was time for the effects of the mild drug to wear off,
and for Wade and Fuller to awaken from their sleep.

"Morey--I've an idea!" There was an expression of perfect innocence on
Arcot's face--but a twinkle of humor in his eyes. "I wonder if it might
not be interesting to observe the reactions of a man waking suddenly
from sleep to find