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several weeks to complete their investigations), Rohan had the huts dismantled. The engines started and the column began its way back in a northwesterly direction. Rohan was unable to give any further details to his crew, who were eager to learn more about the Condor . He was certain, however, that it was advisable to hurry back, for he assumed that the commander would give out new assignments that most likely would supply them with more rewarding answers. Of course, the first step would consist of a thorough examination of the area where the Condor was supposed to have landed. Rohan drove as fast as the engines would permit. Their return trip was accompanied by a hellish noise as the caterpillar tracks rattled rapidly over the gravel ground, crunching and cracking and spewing out the stones in their path.
    At the onset of darkness they switched on their big headlights; before their eyes the flickering light cones drew from the darkness huge, shapeless, apparently mobile silhouettes—which turned out to be nothing but big boulders, the last remaining remnants of an eroded mountain chain.
    Several times they were forced to stop before some deep rifts in the basalt that had to be cautiously circumnavigated.
    It was long past midnight when they finally sighted the body of the Invincible , shimmering in the distance like a festively illuminated metal tower. A great deal of activity was going on within the area of the energy field. Rows of vehicles were moving about, provisions and fuel were unloaded; groups of men were crowded below the ramp, which was lit up as bright as daylight by the huge Jupiter lamps. From a distance the returning men could hear the noise generated by the workers, busily scurrying about like so many ants in a bustling ant-heap. Now blue signal lights began to blink to indicate the spot where they could re-enter the energy screen. One after another, the vehicles of the returning expedition rolled into the protective hemisphere.
    Hardly had Rohan jumped off his truck when he hailed one of the passing men, whom he recognized as Blank. Rohan asked him what else had been found out about the Condor. But Blank had not even heard anything about the presumed discovery of the lost spaceship. There were only a few additional bits of information he could supply to Rohan. Before the satellites had burned up in the lower layers of the atmosphere they had managed to make some eleven thousand photographs. These had been transmitted and received by radio signals, which in their turn had been transferred onto specially prepared plates that were now in the cartographical cabin.
    Rohan did not wish to waste any time. He ordered the cartographer Erett to come to his own cabin. While standing under a hot shower, Rohan quizzed Erett. He wanted to hear what had occurred on board the Invincible while he had been out on his expedition to the ocean shore. Erett was one of those who had carefully examined the incoming satellite photos for any trace of the vanished Condor. He had been one of thirty men who had searched for this tiny grain of steel in the vast ocean of sand. Their group of experts had consisted of several planetologists, cartographers, radar observers and all pilots aboard the Invincible. For more than twenty-four hours they had alternately sifted through the incoming material and then noted down the coordinates of any suspicious spot on the planet. Unfortunately the commander’s report to Rohan had turned out to be incorrect: what they had believed to be the spaceship was nothing but an unusually tall rocky spire whose shadow had looked remarkably like that of a rocket. Thus the Condor’s fate remained in the dark as before.
    Rohan wanted to report directly to the commander but he had already retired for the night, so Rohan went to his own cabin. Despite his exhaustion he could not fall asleep for a long time. Shortly after he awoke the next morning, he received a request from the astrogator via Ballmin, chief of the