CHAPTER III

They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the _Elephant's Child_, eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm and the frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O. Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohp of the extinct Martian Space Navy.

"If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp was saying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter on his chest--a tiny box which could be set to change any of nine thousand spoken languages into any one of the others--"and at that time my people had lost the secrets of space travel for approximately four thousand years, this means that I have been reclining on a planetoid here for at least 4,100 years. The probability is that it has been much longer. Unfortunately my time recorder has long since become inoperative."

He extended one of his four rib appendages and picked up a piece of carrot. "Naturally I was in a cataleptic state," he went on. "As you may know, in my race that means that all body processes are suspended _in toto_. There is no growth and no decay. Moth and rust do not corrupt, you might put it."

Pink frowned momentarily. There was a false note somewhere, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He tried to remember all he could about the dying race of Martians. What Ynohp was saying was correct, as nearly as he could recall, but ... he shrugged. My God! he thought, this critter's over four thousand years old!

Well, Circe's about forty-five.

The hell she is. She's twenty-seven, which was her age when her ship was wrecked, plus about one actual year of life which equals the eighteen she was lost in the Slugjet. Twenty-eight, then, really. I'm thirty-one. Not a bad combination.

Hey, boy, you're a confirmed bachelor, remember?

He chuckled. Who says so? He took a look at Circe. The prettiest spaceman who ever came my way, he said to himself happily.

The dinner broke up. Space etiquette demanded that he escort the Martian to his stateroom first, for the four-armed little gray man was senior to a mere organicus officer; when he returned to the mess hall, he found that Joe Silver had whisked Circe away to show her the new improvements in space drives and other technical details.

"At least," said Bill Calico, "he said he was going to."

Pink went off to talk to Jerry, who was a lousy substitute for a beautiful girl.

He found his O. O. tinkering with the life-scanner.

"Something wrong," Jerry said through his teeth. He was a slim young man--Pink, who stood six-three and hefted in at two hundred, would have made two of Jerry--and his normally joyous expression was now writhed into a frown. "The red light's not on, but the scanner's not working."

"How d'you know?"

"Had a hunch. Don't ask me why--unless it's that the Martian makes me suspicious. Anyway, I tested the scanner; turned it inside and aimed it all over the ship. Nothing doing. No life in here, according to it. So something's the matter with it, and I'm damned if I can figure what."

Pink said, "That means what?"

"Means that if Fawcett or any of his men are out there, we won't know it. We could flash right by them, or through 'em for that matter, and never know it."

"Nothing more serious, though?"

"That's bad enough, isn't it?" Jerry asked him.

"Sure, sure." Pink shook himself. "I feel--I guess _wary_ is the word." Jerry looked a question. "Yeah," said Pinkham uncomfortably, "it's the Martian. A nice guy and all, but he makes me wonder."

"Four thousand years plus," nodded Jerry.

"No, not that. I think that's possible. It's something else, son."

"What?"

Pink said slowly, futilely, "I don't know." He patted the O.O.'s shoulder. "Keep at it, Jerry." He went out and walked down the long ramp to the astrolab. Daley was there. "How's it going?" Pink asked him.

"We aren't moving," said the lieutenant.

"I know. I told Kinkare to put her into the same orbit as the asteroid belt. We want to stay in the same relation to the planetoids till we decide where to look for Fawcett."

"I know you issued those orders, Pink. I meant we aren't in the orbit. We're hanging in space, and the dang asteroids are shooting past us." Daley flipped on his great banks of scanners. "See?" Bands of light were tiny balls of inert matter, flashing by an obviously stationary _Elephant's Child_.

Pink jumped for the intercom. "No use," said Daley. "It's dead. I sent Calico for Randy Kinkare." They looked at each other. "I think it's Ynohp," said Daley.

Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done it--if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet per second."

"Maybe he can."

"You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as Terrestrians."

"And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?"

"Washington, did you ever see a Martian?"

"Yeah."

"Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall, four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?"

"I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other facts could explain it."

Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run.

Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly.

The space drive was out of commission.

They were adrift in the void.