It was a long, silvery, torpedo-shaped hull, completely filling the
small clearing. Rocket tubes jutted from its tapering tail; narrow fins
creased its smooth flanks. A round airlock door stood open, waiting.
[Illustration: Joe raised the strange robot globe and depressed the
keys. Out on the plain a space ship came into being.]
"A--A _rocket ship_!" Bowen gasped.
"More than that!" Joe was grinning as he moved out toward the open
airlock. "She's equipped with water and air purifying devices and
food synthesis tanks that'll supply one man as long as ten years! She
has antigravity equipment that can lift her right off the Earth--and
a rocket drive that'll accelerate to a velocity of two hundred and
seventy-eight miles per second! That's roughly a million miles an hour!
That means I can reach Mars' orbit in just over thirty hours!"
"But--but what're you going to _do_ with it?" Barbara stammered.
"Do?" Joe leaped into the airlock, his robot clutched under his arm,
and faced them with a laugh. "I'm going to the only place I'll be safe,
Barbara! And I'll find out who built the canals on Mars! And what
mysteries lie below the cloud-blanket of Venus! And whether any of the
moons of Jupiter are inhabitable--"
"Y-you mean," Bowen sputtered, "you're _going into space_?"