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Mason said, his voice beginning to betray the rising sense of elation he felt. The planet was getting farther and farther away. The other ship was only a memory now. He looked across at Mickey. Mickey was staring, open-mouthed, as if he were about ready to shout out “Hurry!” but was afraid to tempt the fates.
    “Six thousand … seven thousand! ” Mason’s voice was jubilant. “We’re out of it!”
    Mickey’s face broke into a great, relieved grin. He ran a hand over his brow and flicked great drops of sweat on the deck.
    “God,” he said, gasping, “my God.”
    Mason moved over to Ross’s seat. He clapped the captain on the shoulder.
    “We made it,” he said. “Nice flying.”
    Ross looked irritated.
    “We shouldn’t have left,” he said. “It was nothing all the time. Now we have to start looking for another planet.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t a good idea to leave,” he said.
    Mason stared at him. He turned away, shaking his head, thinking … you can’t win.
    “If I ever see another glitter,” he thought aloud, “I’ll keep my big mouth shut. To hell with alien races anyway.”
    Silence. He went back to his seat and picked up his graph chart. He let out a long shaking breath. Let Ross complain, he thought, I can take anything now. Things are normal again. He began to figure casually what might have occurred down there on that planet. Then he happened to glance at Ross.
    Ross was thinking. His lips pressed together. He said something to himself. Mason found the captain looking at him. “Mason,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Alien race, you said.”
    Mason felt a chill flood through his body. He saw the big head nod once in decision. Unknown decision. His hands started to shake. A crazy idea came. No, Ross wouldn’t do that, not just to assuage vanity. Would he?
    “I don’t…” he started. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mickey watching the captain too.
    “ Listen, ” Ross said. “I’ll tell you what happened down there. I’ll show you what happened!”
    They stared at him in paralyzing horror as he threw the ship around and headed back.
    “What are you doing!” Mickey cried.
    “Listen,” Ross said. “Didn’t you understand me? Don’t you see how we’ve been tricked?”
    They looked at him without comprehension. Mickey took a step toward him.
    “Alien race,” Ross said. “That’s the short of it. That time-space idea is all wet. But I’ll tell you what idea isn’t all wet. So we leave the place. That’s our first instinct as far as reporting it? Saying it’s uninhabitable? We’d do more than that. We wouldn’t report it at all.”
    “Ross, you’re not taking us back!” Mason said, standing up suddenly as the full terror of returning struck him.
    “You bet I am!” Ross said, fiercely elated.
    “You’re crazy!” Mickey shouted at him, his body twitching, his hands clenched at his sides menacingly.
    “Listen to me!” Ross roared at them. “Who would be benefited by us not reporting the existence of that planet?”
    They didn’t answer. Mickey moved closer.
    “Fools!” he said. “Isn’t it obvious? There is life down there. But life that isn’t strong enough to kill us or chase us away with force. So what can they do? They don’t want us there. So what can they do?”
    He asked them like a teacher who cannot get the right answers from the dolts in his class.
    Mickey looked suspicious. But he was curious now, too, and a little timorous as he had always been with his captain, except in moments of greatest physical danger. Ross had always led them, and it was hard to rebel against it even when it seemed he was trying to kill them all. His eyes moved to the viewer screen where the planet began to loom beneath them like a huge dark ball.
    “We’re alive,” Ross said, “and I say there never was a ship down there. We saw it, sure. We touched it. But you can see anything if you believe it’s there! All your senses can tell you there’s something