I tried to keep her talking, “If you would give me the bare bones, Dr. Calvin, I can have Mr. Powell fill it in afterward.” (And this was exactly what I later did.)

She spread her thin hands out upon the desk and looked at them. “There are two or three,” she said, “that I know a little about.”

“Start with Mercury,” I suggested.

“Well, I think it was in 2015 that the Second Mercury Expedition was sent out. It was exploratory and financed in part by U.S. Robots and in part by Solar Minerals. It consisted of a new-type robot, still experimental; Gregory Powell; Michael Donovan—”

2. RUNAROUND

IT WAS ONE of Gregory Powell’s favorite platitudes that nothing was to be gained from excitement, so when Mike Donovan came leaping down the stairs toward him, red hair matted with perspiration, Powell frowned.

“What’s wrong?” he said. “Break a fingernail?”

“Yaaaah,” snarled Donovan, feverishly. “What have you been doing in the sublevels all day?” He took a deep breath and blurted out, “Speedy never returned.”

Powell’s eyes widened momentarily and he stopped on the stairs; then he recovered and resumed his upward steps. He didn’t speak until he reached the head of the flight, and then:

“You sent him after the selenium?”

“Yes.”

“And how long has he been out?”

“Five hours now.”

Silence! This was a devil of a situation. Here they were, on Mercury exactly twelve hours—and already up to the eyebrows in the worst sort of trouble. Mercury had long been the jinx world of the System, but this was drawing it rather strong—even for a jinx.

Powell said, “Start at the beginning, and let’s get this straight.”

They were in the radio room now—with its already subtly antiquated equipment, untouched for the ten years previous to their arrival. Even ten years, technologically speaking, meant so much. Compare Speedy with the type of robot they must have had back in 2005. But then, advances in robotics these days were tremendous. Powell touched a still gleaming metal surface gingerly. The air of disuse that touched everything about the room—and the entire Station—was infinitely depressing.

Donovan must have felt it. He began: “I tried to locate him by radio, but it was no go. Radio isn’t any good on the Mercury Sunside—not past two miles, anyway. That’s one of the reasons the First Expedition failed. And we can’t put up the ultrawave equipment for weeks yet—”

“Skip all that. What did you get?”

“I located the unorganized body signal in the short wave. It was no good for anything except his position. I kept track of him that way for two hours and plotted the results on the map.”

There was a yellowed square of parchment in his hip pocket—a relic of the unsuccessful First Expedition—and he slapped it down on the desk with vicious force, spreading it flat with the palm of his hand. Powell, hands clasped across his chest, watched it at long range.