landing-grid and directly over the equator."

He scribbled for a moment.

"Which means forty-two thousand miles high, give or take a few
hundred, and--here! And I was hunting for it in a close-in orbit!"

He grumbled to himself. He waited while the solar-system drive pushed
the Med Ship a quarter of the way around the bright planet below. The
sunset line vanished and the planet's disk became a complete circle.
Then Calhoun listened to the monitor earphones again, and grunted once
more, and changed course, and presently made a noise indicating
satisfaction.

He abandoned instrument control and peered directly out of a port,
handling the solar system drive with great care. Murgatroyd said
depressedly, "_Chee!_"

"Stop worrying," commanded Calhoun. "We haven't been challenged, and
there is a beacon transmitter at work, just to make sure that nobody
bumps into what we're looking for. It's a great help, because we do
want to bump, but gently."

Stars swung across the port out of which he looked. Something dark
appeared, and then straight lines and exact curvings. Even Maril,
despairing and bewildered as she was, caught sight of something vastly
larger than the Med Ship, floating in space. She stared. The Med Ship
maneuvered very cautiously. She saw another large object. A third. A
fourth. There seemed to be dozens of them.