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At once I sent out the 2nd Officer and one of the men to investigate the cause. Radio communication between their spacesuits and our headsets was found to be unimpeded.

I asked what the trouble was. The 2nd Officer answered me.

"I can't say, sir. It's a red stuff—red as blood. The whole ship's covered in it, as though she's been through a bath of paint."

I inquired what kind of "red stuff'".

"Kind of slimy, sir, like—like a half melted jelly, only not transparent."

"That's not a lot of help," I said. "Anyway, the first thing to do is to clean it off the instrument glasses and then off the windows."

"Aye, aye, sir," he acknowledged.

I ordered the lights in the navigation room switched off, and we were able to see that the darkness was not complete. Experimentally we unshuttered one of the windows sunward and found the glass behind to be shining with a fierce red glow. The navigator reported that one of his instruments had been cleared to a usable condition, and the internal lights were switched on again.

We could hear the two men outside commenting on the unpleasant stickiness of the stuff they were clearing from a second instrument glass.

"Hullo, Navigator. How's that?" asked the Second.

"Okay," replied the Navigator. "But the first one's clouded over again."

There was a pause, then:

"That's funny," said the Second. "It's almost as thick as before. Just a minute, I'll give it another wipe."

For some moments there was silence. Then the other man's voice said in thoughtful surprise:

"Good Lord! This is a thing!"

"What's the matter, Mr. Docker?" I asked.

"It's queer, sir," replied the Second. "I wiped some of it off, and then while we looked at it the edges of the smear started to creep over the glass again. They're still doing it. Not exactly flowing back like a liquid: kind of encroaching, it's ... There, it's covered the glass completely again."

"The other instrument's obscured again, too," the Navigator put in.

"Well—" began the Second. Then he stopped and we heard him mutter, "Good God—" A moment later he added, as if to his companion: "What is it?"

"Well, whatis it?" I repeated in irritation.

"I don't know, sir. It seems to be something that—that grows."

"All the same we must have those instruments clear," I said.

"No good, sir," he answered. "It grows back on them as fast as we can move it. It's growing over us too, sir. It's spreading up the suits. It's above our knees and on our sleeves halfway up to the shoulder already."

I considered. Then I asked:

"Are we clear of all bodies?"

"Yes, sir. Nothing within miles of us."

"All right then, one of you come inboard and we'll have a look at the stuff. The other to remain on watch."

"Aye, aye, sir," the Second responded.

Half a minute later a weird figure emerged from the air lock. His trunk was clad in the usual grey spacesuit, but both arms and legs were enveloped in a brilliant scarlet.

The stuff glistened and did not look inviting to the touch. I scraped some of it off his sleeve with the blade of a knife and looked at it closely beneath the light. Quite perceptibly it was creeping up the clean part of the blade, and it seemed, as the Second had said, to grow rather than flow.

The other men in the room stood round regarding the man in the spacesuit curiously. One of them gave a sudden exclamation and pointed to his feet and the deck behind him. We looked down and saw the red film spreading out across the steel floor, not only from his feet as he stood, but from each footprint he had left in walking from the airlock. It was visibly, though slowly, extending even as we looked at it, and the substance on the man had passed beyond his arms to crawl on to his chest and shoulders.

I told a man to fetch blowtorches, and placed the knife carefully on to the floor near to the spreading mess. Instinctively we all avoided touching it while we waited.

The man returned with three blowtorches. When we'd started them up we tried one on a patch of the stuff on the floor. I think we all felt considerable relief when we saw the substance shrivel, smoke and char in the flame. The torches did not take long to destroy all that was left on the floor. The man in the spacesuit bad made no attempt to remove his equipment and the torches could be run over him as he stood without injuring the insulating surface. It was a lucky state for him: how the stuff can be cleared from an inflammable or delicate surface such as clothes or the unprotected body we do not know.

By the time the last traces of the red stuff had been cleared the radio operator was reporting that he was receiving no reply to his calls, and that reception was faint and growing fainter even on full power. It appeared that the red substance must have some masking or leakage effect on the hullaerial system.

The Second Officer came through again on the headset. He reported that the coating on the ship appeared to be building up and thickening.

"How's it with you?" I asked.

"It's all over me now, sir. I have to keep wiping the face plate every half minute or so to see at all. Otherwise I'm okay, sir."

There was no falling off in his transmission which suggested that we had been right in assuming that interference with the hullaerial system was the trouble. The radio operator decided to see if he could rig a serviceable internal aerial. So far, twentyfour hours later, he had not been successful in achieving transmission—at least, we were without replies to his messages.

It is difficult to see what can be done. Were we near any body with an atmosphere we might try by travelling reverse and flying into the blast of our own main tubes to burn ourselves clear of the mess; but, unfortunately, the only place with an atmosphere within many hundred thousand miles is Mars which we can have no hope of reaching with our instruments out of commission.

The only other way which suggests itself to us is the construction of some kind of pressure torches operated from our main fuel supply with which we may be able to incinerate the stuff, and the engineers are at present attempting to construct devices of the kind.

Whether, if they are successful, it will be possible to carry out the operation in space we cannot say. We are therefore cautiously and by visual findings only of an officer on outside watch in the direction of Pomona Negra on which asteroid we can ground if necessary.

In the twentyfour hours which have passed since we encountered the red substance I have myself been outside twice to inspect the vessel. There is no doubt whatever that the layer which covers us is increasing in thickness, and in traversing the side of the vessel one's feet slide through it as through a semiliquid mud. The officer on watch is covered with the stuff so as to be almost indistinguishable from the ship, and is under the necessity of wiping it from the faceplate of his helmet several times in a minute.

The nature of the substance we have not been able to determine since we dare not retain a specimen inside the ship for examination. It is necessary to be most thorough in the decontamination of all persons reentering after duty outside as any minute particle overlooked is capable of growing with surprising speed. The airlock so rapidly began to choke that it has to be decontaminated after every entrance or exit.

From superficial examination it has occurred to us that the substance may be some algaelike form capable of sustaining life by the creation of light alone, and of transferring this nourishment throughout the whole, though we are aware that this is somewhat in conflict with its observed ability to grow or reproduce itself within the ship as swiftly as without.

It has been decided to send out these particulars and other documents in a message globe lest we should be unable to establish radiocommunication. The dispatch port will be cleared on the outer side by specially modified blowlamps so that it is hoped that the globe may be released without contamination.

Any vessel approaching us should be warned of the highly active nature of the substance, and is advised not to make use of magnetic grapples or any other devices which may give a physical link with the ship.

The date beneath the signature of the Master to the full version of the above report was 21st December 2049.

On the 10th of February of the current year, a little over a month of the finding of the messageglobe, the Annabelle , a service and research ship out of Gillington, Mars, made rendezvous with the SpaceControl's vessel,Circe , dispatched from Mexico, Earth, by way of Clarke Station.

TheAnnabelle pulled into the appointed area situated within the Asteroid Belt in the sector of Pomona Negra to find theCirce already arrived and lying idle at orbit speed as she waited. Even as his braking tubes went into action Captain Richard Bentley of theAnnabelle made personal radio report to his opposite number in the other ship, and announced himself.

"Oh, it's you, Dick, is it?" responded theCirce's Captain, with a tinge of relief evident in his tone. "They didn't tell me who'd be in your ship. Glad you're here. I'd a nasty feeling it might be one of those triproundtheMoon merchants—you never can tell with Head Office. I think the best thing would be for you to come over and have a chat once you're up to us. Suit you?"

Bentley agreed. TheAnnabelle continued to brake smoothly until she too was down to orbit speed. Then, with occasional little tufts of flame from one steering tube and then another her pilot expertly manoeuvred her until she lay close in to the other ship. A magnetic grapple floated out towards the Circe with its cable looping lazily behind it. It moved a trifle wide of the ship and looked likely to miss it, but a momentary touch of current down the cable caused it to veer in the right direction. A minute or two later it made contact on the hull and clamped itself there as the power was switched on. Captain Bentley emerged, spacesuited, from the airlock of his ship, laid hold of the cable and pulled himself across the void which separated the two. He seemed to swim through the black emptiness, using only one hand on the rope with a dexterity which revealed experience.

Inside theCirce's lock Captain Waterson greeted him and, after he had got rid of the suit, led the way to his cabin. He handed the visitor a drink in a spacebottle, tapped a globule into his own mouth from another with the skill of long practice, and lit a cigarette. Dick Bentley lit one also and inhaled.

"Lucky man," he said. "Our owners don't allow smoking."

"Bad luck," said Captain Waterson. "Anybody would think we were sailing in wood and paper ships to read some Company's rules. They want to spend some time in space and learn that a contented crew is more important. Well, now, what about this business?"

"I don't know any more than there is in Foggatt's report."

"Nor does spacecontrol. That's why we're here. They want all the details we can get."

"What's your own view?" Bentley asked.

"I'm not forming any views yet, but I'm not discounting anything Foggatt says; he is—or was—a sound man. It's clear that SpaceControl takes it seriously or they wouldn't have arranged for the two of us to be on the job."

Bentley nodded.

"Well, you're in charge, Tom. What's the plan?"

"We've got two jobs really. One is to locate theJoan III and give all assistance we can. The other is to find some of this red stuff Foggatt talks about. Learn what we can about it, and collect some specimens for examination at home."

Bentley nodded again.

"There shouldn't be a lot of difficulty about the second part. From Foggatt's account of the red asteroids I gather he thought that it existed on them. They're somewhere in this area, so they ought not to be hard to find. What isn't at all clear is how theJoan III became covered with the stuff. If the report's right it didn't gradually grow over her. The instrument glasses and windows were all covered at once at more or less the same moment."

"I know," Captain Waterson agreed. "It would seem almost as if she ran through a cloud of the stuff just lying about in space, as it were. Queer thingsdo lie about in space ... I've seen one or two myself in my time, but all the same ... Besides, how was it they didn't spot it before they ran into it? They don't seem to have had a suspicion there was anything there."

"There was some reference to obstruction of observations at the time," Dick Bentley recalled, "though it seemed as if it referred to intervening flocks of petty asteroids..."

"H'm. Well if we find them maybe we'll learn a bit more—but it's a big if. Nearly fourteen months now since they sent off that globe. Seems to me one of the things we've got to keep a sharp look out for round these parts is that we don't get into the same kind of mess they did."

"Maybe that's why they sent the two of us," Bentley suggested, thoughtfully.

They got down to the details of operation. There could be no doubt about the first move. It would be to examine the Asteroid, Pomona Negra, for any signs that theJoan III had indeed landed there as her intention had been. It was quite possible that crippled as she was on the navigation side and depending only on the directions of a lookout who would find difficulty in the conditions in using even fieldglasses, she had been unable to reach it. If neither she nor any sign of her presence was to be seen, there would be a further conference on the method of search to be adopted.

Captain Bentley was content to leave the arrangement at that when he returned to theAnnabelle . Half an hour later the two ships, at a speed very little above that of the asteroids themselves began to nose their way with a delicate fastidiousness into the Belt in the direction of Pomona Negra.

The next days were tedious with slow movement. The imperative quality was caution. It was impossible to observe and avoid all contact with asteroids which travelled not only in swarms, but often solitary and might be in size anything from a pebble to a large building and therefore necessary to limit their speed to one at which the larger bodies could be seen and avoided, and glancing or direct blows from the smaller would do no harm. For all on board the ships it was a disagreeable period of weariness which frayed the nerves and shortened the tempers.