It looked like the Lunar
Observatory pictures of Jupiter, back in the Sun's family of planets.
It went past the port, and a moon swam into view. It was a very large
moon. It had at least one ice-cap--and therefore an atmosphere--and
there were mottlings of its surface which could hardly be anything but
continents and seas.
"We've got to put a show on!" raged Cochrane. "And now!"
"It's all set," Bell assured him. "You can transmit it. I hope you like
it!"
Cochrane sputtered. But there was nothing to do but transmit whatever
Bell and Jamison had gotten ready. He swam with nightmarelike difficulty
back to the communicator. He shouted frantically for Babs. She and
Alicia came. Alicia found the film-tape, and Cochrane threaded it into
the transmitter, and bitterly ran the first few feet. Babs smiled at
him, and Alicia looked at him oddly. Evidently, Babs had confided the
consequence of their casting-away. But Cochrane faced an emergency. He
began to check timings with far-distant Earth.
When the ship approached a second planet, Cochrane saw nothing of it. He
was furiously monitoring the broadcast of a show in which he'd had no
hand at all.
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