The silence in the space-ship's control-room was thick, breathless. A frail figure against the rivet-studded bulkhead, Joan Conway stared with horror-filled eyes at the grim figure on the floor. They had removed Kennerly's space-suit, and with the warmth of the cabin the stump of the frozen finger which Grant had inadvertently broken off was beginning to seep blood. The girl forced her voice to remain steady.
"Under the circumstances, Mr. Grant," she said tightly, "I have decided to overlook your disobedience of orders until we return to earth ... if we do. Are there any clues on Kennerly?"
Grant, kneeling beside the dead man, examining him carefully, shook his head.
"Nothing," he muttered. "No holes in his suit, no signs of anything that might have killed him other than the cold. The battery of his heating unit's run down. And he had a full charge when he left. We checked it. Why he should follow the trail a mile or so from the ship and then sit there for hours, until the failing battery brought death by freezing.... It's suicide!"
"Maybe he got lost, wandered around until he died," one of the space-hands suggested.
"No good." Again Grant shook a somber head. "The trail's perfectly clear. I found him in a deep patch of hoar frost, like snow. Condensed moisture from the escape valve of his helmet. An extraordinarily large patch of 'snow.' Get what that means? Frost patches in this airless void can only mean the moisture from a space-suit's exhaust. And a pile of 'snow' like that about him, could only be the result of remaining hours in one spot. Kennerly left this ship for Bowman's Crater, got about two miles away and then crouched down to wait for death. Crouched there for hours, until his heating unit ran out of juice and he froze. Why?" Grant motioned to the inert form' with its terrified countenance. "He had sustained no injury, could have followed a perfectly clear path back to the ship, and instead he crouched there until he died!"
"Maybe something held him," Joan suggested. "Magnetism."
Grant picked up the asbestoid space-suit. "Fiber, glassex helmet, rust-proof copper fittings, lead gravity shoes. No iron or steel on it. Another thing. How did he know Allers was dead? What did he mean by 'unknown forces' and 'no hope?' There's something devilish, unreal, out there. Something that's determined to keep us from getting word through, determined to keep us here until we die from lack of oxygen! Just like Kennerly died from lack of heat. It's afraid to attack us, but tries to trap us, until we die."
Again silence fell over the cabin. The remaining space-hands glanced from Kennerly's body to the windows, the clinging darkness outside. Joan's gaze sought the leaden chests; she laughed unhumorously.
"Pitchblend! A million in radium! And what good is it? All our work here to get it and now no chance of ever reaching earth."