JAN OFTEN SAT WITH me through our long vigils up there in the green-house. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak for an hour—just sitting there dreaming. Sometimes he would talk of the ill-fated Roberts and King Expedition—the only exploratory flight which ever had headed in this close to the Sun. That was five years ago. Roberts and King, with a crew of eight, had never been heard from since.
“I just think they found Vulcan,” Jan said once, out of one of his long silences.
“They were told to return after a routine landing,” Torrence put in.
“Well then, suppose they crashed their ship,” Jan said. “Suppose they can’t get back—”
“What we ought to do is sight Vulcan, round it and go home,” Torrence said. “To the devil with orders to land. I’d go back and tell them that in my judgment—”
“We’ll land
