"Yes. In 2099. Envers was a fool who thought that if a sunship could go to the moon, it might go to Mars just as well. He must have been struck by meteorites."
"There is no reason why Envers might not have reached Mars in 2100," said Trainor. "The heliographic dispatches continued until he was well over half way. There was no trouble then. We have very good reason to think that he landed, that his return was prevented by intelligent beings on Mars. We know that they are using what they learned from his captured sunship to launch an interplanetary expedition of their own!"
"And that blue spot has something to do with it?"
"We think so. But I have authority to tell you nothing more. As the situation advances, we will have need for newspaper publicity. We want you to take charge of that. Mr. Cain, of course, is in supreme charge. You will remember your word to await his permission to publish anything."
Trainor turned again to the telescope.
With a little clatter, the elevator stopped again at the entrance door of the observatory. A slender girl ran from it across to the man at the telescope.
"My daughter Paula, Mr. Windsor," said Trainor.
Paula Trainor was an exquisite being. Her large eyes glowed with a peculiar shade of changing brown. Black hair was shingled close to her shapely head. Her face was small, elfinly beautiful, the skin almost transparent. But it was the eyes that were remarkable. In their lustrous depths sparkled mingled essence of childish innocence, intuitive, age-old wisdom, and quick intelligence—intellect that was not coldly reasonable, but effervescent, flashing to instinctively correct conclusions. It was an oddly baffling face, revealing only the mood of the moment. One could not look at it and say that its owner was good or bad, indulgent or stern, gentle or hard. It could be, if she willed, the perfect mirror of the moment's thought—but the deep stream of her character flowed unrevealed behind it.
Bill looked at her keenly, noted all that, engraved the girl in the notebook of his memory. But in her he saw only an interesting feature story.
"Dad's been telling you about the threatened invasion from Mars, eh?" she inquired in a low, husky voice, liquid and delicious. "The most thrilling thing, isn't it? Aren't we lucky to know about it, and to be in the fight against it!—instead of going on like all the rest of the world, not dreaming there is danger?"