"I doubt it," I agreed. "So far as I ever heard, those accidents were—well, just accidents. An air-valve can go wrong, you know, and dump the air out of a ship. Air goes quickly, and with a pretty powerful rush, if it once gets started.... Gruesome kind of talk, Miss Carson," I added lightly.
She tried to smile. My heart went out to her in that moment. Her beauty, I suppose; but somehow she seemed horribly pathetic. That mention of Asteroid-9 mysteriously frightened her; and now this mention of the phantom spaceship terrified her even more.
"You're right," Arthur Jerome agreed. "The supernatural is fascinating. Or a thing that you can't see but still can kill you—that's just as gruesome."
"And fascinating?" Philip Carson put in sourly. "Well, it may be to you, but it's frightening my sister. Let's talk of something else."
Then another passenger joined us. That girl was a magnet to men.
"Well, well, Miss Carson," he boomed as he came up. "You are looking very beautiful in the starlight." He sat down with us. His name was Walter J. Livingston—the Very Honorable Walter J. Livingston to give him his official title. He had just been appointed by the President of the World-Federation as Earth Ambassador to the Martian Government; was on his way there now to present his credentials. He was a big, heavy-set fellow, with a mass of iron-gray hair, a ribbon across his ruffled shirt-bosom; and the out-jutting jaw and booming voice of a born politician. Did he by any chance know the contents of the Seven Stars' cargo, this voyage? So far as I had been informed, he did not. I studied him now, and instinctively I didn't like him—possibly because of the extravagant compliments he was paying Brenda Carson.
The talk went on, and presently as I glanced up to the little control tower under the pressure-dome above us, I saw the bulky figure of Captain Wilkes standing there. He caught my gaze and furtively gestured. I excused myself in a moment; sauntered down the narrow side deck, turned a distant corner of the little superstructure. Then I went up to its roof, and forward again. In a moment I was in the control tower.
Captain Wilkes was there, seated alone with his electro-telescope beside him. He slid the oval doors closed upon us.
"Your ship's in sight," he greeted me. "Thought you'd be interested."