Babs looked momentarily up into his face.  She smiled ever so faintly.

“They’re watching us from the ports,” she said.  “If you want my viewpoint—­If we were to wave to them that we’ll be right back, we can get some more of those fruits I cooked.  It might be interesting to have some to show them.”

He scowled more deeply than before.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.  But if that’s it—­”

“And on the way,” said Babs.  “When they’re not watching, you might kiss me.”

They had a considerable pile of the red-fleshed fruits ready when the ground had cooled enough for them to reach the landing-sling.

Once aboard the ship, Cochrane headed for the control-room, with Jamison and Bell tagging after him.  Bell had an argument.

“But the volcano’s calmed down—­there’s only a wall of steam where the lava hit the glaciers—­and we could fix up a story in a couple of hours!  I’ve got background shots!  You and Babs could make the story-scenes and we’d have a castaway story!  Perfect!  The first true castaway story from the stars—.  You know what that would mean!”

Cochrane snarled at him.

“Try it and I’ll tear you limb from limb!  I’ve put enough of other people’s private lives on the screen!  My own stays off!  I’m not going to have even a phoney screen-show built around Babs and me for people to gabble about!”

Bell said in an injured tone: 

“I’m only trying to do a good job!  I started off on this business as a writer.  I haven’t had a real chance to show what I can do with this sort of material!”

“Forget it!” Cochrane snapped again.  “Stick to your cameras!”

Jamison said hopefully: 

“You’ll give me some data on plants and animals, Mr. Cochrane?  Won’t you?  I’m doing a book with Bell’s pictures, and—­”

“Let me alone!” raged Cochrane.

He reached the control-room.  Al, the pilot, sat at the controls with an air of special alertness.

“You’re all right?  For our lined up trip, we ought to leave in about twenty minutes.  We’ll be pointing just about right then.”

“I’m all right,” said Cochrane.  “And you can take off when you please.”  To Jones he said:  “How’d you find us?  I didn’t think it could be done.”

“Doctor Holden figured it out,” said Jones.  “Simple enough, but I was lost!  When the ground-shocks came, everybody else ran to the ship.  We waited for you.  You didn’t come.”  It had been, of course, because Cochrane would not risk taking Babs through a forest in which trees were falling.  “We finally had to choose between taking off and crashing.  So we took off.”

“That was quite right.  We’d all be messed up if you hadn’t,” Cochrane told him.

Jones waved his hands.