Both Lucero and Mark came to, faces crimson, smiling sheepishly. Together they left the helio-plane and went down an emergency ladder into the interior of the vast interplanetary Spacer.
Within the Stellar Virgin the silence was intense—the silence of a dead city. In the luxurious quarters provided for the scientists, the latter lay soundless and inert in the almost ultimate oblivion of sleep-freeze. They were ten in number to each mammoth, cavernous stateroom, and in the very center, upon a throne-like dais, motionless and life-like, a gigantic robot sat immobile, awaiting the end of the trip, when for the first time since they were fashioned, they would perform the only task impressed upon their virgin brains.
Mark Lynn went silently from cabin to cabin, to all outward appearances insp
