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HE WORD went round the entire survey ship before Platt had brought the launch to a rocking halt beside the three explorers. Everyone, barring the apprentice engineer who had to stand by in the engine room and the radio officer, burst out on the deck, eager to confirm the impossible with their own eyes.
    Its effect on Dr. Gordon was tremendous. He came trotting from his office with a stylo still in his hands, his face red with excitement and beaded with new sweat. He clutched the afterrail as though strangling an enemy, and his lips moved silently.
    Peter found his powers of mind temporarily suspended. He could not even form ridiculous theories to account for Luke’s return. Damn it, if Eloise and Dick had chanced across his
body
that would have been acceptable, although it would have made needles in haystacks simple by comparison. But Luke was alive; he clambered over the gunwale of the launch without assistance, and removed his own helmet, squatting in the sternsheets.
    Without oxygen. …
    He
couldn’t
have any oxygen left! His reserve had been identical with Peter’s own; sufficient for about six hours altogether, contained in two cylinders. At three-hour intervals one exchanged an exhausted cylinder for a fresh one stored in the ’nef. Consequently Luke must have suffocated within a few hours—four, perhaps—of the ’nef’s departure for the surface.
    Peter looked about him at the other people on deck. They were all talking except Mary, of course, and also except the Chief. He had not moved from his rigid stance, hands grasping the rail.
    Now the launch was coming alongside; Platt had secured the ’nef’s painter to the mooring line almost without slowing in his haste to get his strange passenger aboard. He came up first into a chorus of questions, but ignored them and turned to help Luke.
    Peter had expected Mary to rush forward and throw herself round his neck. Only she did not; she had not even joined the group helping him up the ladder. She was just staring at him. Assuredly, Peter reflected, she had been right to tell him he didn’t understand her.
    Eloise and Dick followed, to be plagued with loud questions by those who had not got answers out of Luke. He wasn’t giving any, in fact, except a shake of the head.
    But before Eloise and Dick could sort out the inquiries and reply to them, the Chief had thrust his way between Ellington and Hartlund and was dominating the scene, as if he had a power to dominate that he could turn on at will.
    “Enough!” he said sharply. “Hartlund, your head’s screwed on properly. Get Luke to sick bay and have him checked head to toe. I’ll be down in a minute. Dick, Eloise, you two come to my cabin and report on what happened. All right, the rest of you. We’ll get at the answers quicker if you stop bothering us. Break it up!”
    Obediently, they dispersed, glancing back reluctantly. As Peter moved off, he looked for Mary, and found she was nowhere to be seen.
    It was seventeen hundred when the hear-this announced there would be a staff conference in the messroom immediately. Peter was already in the messroom, having a beer with First Officer Ellington and hypothesizing about what was being said by Dick, Eloise and Platt in the Chief’s office. They had been there without interruption since the Chief returned from interviewing Luke.
    In a couple of minutes the company was complete. Gordon was at the head of the table. No sign of Luke. Everyonelooked for him, sighed, and composed himself or herself to listen.
    Gordon was smiling. Almost beaming. But there was a hint of self-satisfaction in the smile which Peter disliked.
    “All right!” the Chief began. “Eloise, let’s deal with the first things first. What happened? Tell us as you told me.”
    Eloise seemed withdrawn, far away. There was a continual puzzlement in her high voice. “The descent had been perfectly normal, of course,” she said. “And we had very little trouble locating the site of these