tch, and the big steel disk
backed slowly out of its threaded seat and swung wide.

* * * * *

Chet drew back one involuntary step as a blast of icy wind drove
stinging snow into his face. Then, without a word, he gave Spud O'Malley
a joyous grin and threw himself out into the void....

And, later, as he released the 'chute where a wind was dragging him
violently across an icy expanse, he was laughing exultantly to see
another 'chute whirled into the enshrouding drifts, while the chunky
figure of a man came scrambling to his feet that he might shake a fist
into the air toward some hidden enemy and shout into the storm epithets
only half-heard.

"--and be damned to ye!" Chet heard him conclude; then was close enough
to throw one arm about the figure and draw him after where he made his
way toward a building that was like a mountain of snow.

Spud must have marveled at the craft within; at her sleek, shining
sides; the flat nose that ended in a black exhaust port. He was
examining the other exhausts that ringed her round when Chet pulled out
a lever from the streamlined surface and swung open an entrance port.

He motioned Spud into the brilliantly lighted interior, where nitron
illuminators were almost blinding as they shone of gleaming levers and
dials of a control room like none that Spud O'Malley had ever seen.

Chet had thrown the building's doors open wide; a whirling motor had
drawn them back on hidden tracks. Now he closed the entrance port with
care, then glanced at his instruments before he placed his hand on a
metal ball.

* * * * *

It hung suspended in air within a cage of curved bars. It was a
modification of the high-liner ball-control, and it was new. Walt
Harkness had had it installed to replace a more crudely fashioned
substitute that had brought them safely back from the Dark Moon. The
name of that new satellite was on Chet's lips as his thin hand rested
delicately upon the ball.

"It's not the Dark Moon this time, old girl," he told the ship, "though
you've taken me there twice. But we're going up just the same, and I
told the Commander he hasn't Patrol Ships enough to hold us back." His
fingers were gripping the little ball--lifting it--moving it forward....

And, as if he lifted the ship itself, the silent cylinder came roaring
into life. Within the great building was a thundering blast that made
the voice of the storm less th