The blip wavered; she tried to rebalance by shifting her body. When the blip suddenly slipped off to one side she cut the throttle quickly. Again she checked her vector. Their situation was somewhat improved. Again she called for help, not stopping to cut the child out of hearing. He said nothing and looked grave.

She went through the same routine, cutting power again when the craft 'fell off its tail." She measured the vector, called for help - and did it all again. A dozen times she tried it. On the last try the thrust stopped with the throttle still wide open. With all fuel gone there was no need to be in a hurry. She measured her vector most carefully on the Eakers' ship, now far away, then checked the results against the City Hall blip, all the while calling for help. She ran through the figures again; in a fashion she had been successful. They were now unquestionably headed for City Hall, could not miss it by more than a few miles at most - almost jumping distance. But, while the vector was correct in direction, it was annoyingly small in quantity - six hundred and fifty miles at about forty miles an hour; they would be closest in about sixteen hours.

She wondered whether Edith really had needed that other spare oxygen bottle. Her own gauge showed about half full. She called for help again, then decided to go through the problem once more; maybe she had dropped a decimal in her head. While she was lining up on City Hall, the tiny light in the stereo tank faded and died. Her language caused Lowell to inquire, "What's the matter now, Grandma?"

"Nothing more than I should have expected, I guess. Some days, hon, it just isn't worth while to wake up in the morning." The trouble, she soon found, was so simple as to be beyond repair. The stereo radar would no longer work because all three cartridges in the power pack were dead. She was forced to admit that she had been using it rather continuously - and it took a lot of power.

"Grandma Hazel! I want to go home!" She pulled out of her troubled thoughts to answer the child.

"We're going home, dear. But it's going to take quite a while."

"I want to go home right now?"

" I'm sorry but you can't"

"But -"

"Shut it up - or when I get you out of that sack, I'll give you something to yelp for. I mean it" She again called for help.

Lowell made one of his lightning changes to serenity. "That's better," approved Hazel. "Want to play a game of chess?"

"No."

"Sissy. You're afraid I'll beat you. I'll bet you three spanks and a knuckle rub."

Lowell considered this. "I get the white men?"

"Take 'em. I'll beat you anyhow."

To her own surprise she did. It was a long drawn-out game; Lowell was not as practised as she was in visualising a board and they had had to recount the moves on several occasions before he would concede the arrangement of men... and between each pair of moves she had again called for help. About the middle of the game she had found it necessary to remove her oxygen bottle and replace it with the one spare. She and the child had started out even but Lowell's small mass demanded much less oxygen.

"How about another one? Want to get your revenge?"

"No! I want to go home."

" We're going home, dear."

"How soon?"

"Well... it'll be a while yet I'll tell you a story."

"What story?"

"Well, how about the one about the worm that crawled up out of the mud?"

"Oh, I know that one! I'm tired of it"

"There are parts I've never told you, And you can't get tired of it, not really, because there is never any end to it. Always something new." So she told him again about the worm that crawled up out of the slime, not because it didn't have enough to eat, not because it wasn't nice and warm and comfortable down there under the water - but because the worm was restless. How it crawled up on dry land and grew legs. How part of it got to be the Elephant's Child and part of it got to be a monkey, grew hands, and fiddled with things. How, still insati­ably restless, it grew wings and reached up for the stars. She spun it out a long, long time, pausing occasionally to call for aid.

Thechild was either bored and ignored her, or liked it and kept quiet on that account. But when she stopped he said, "Tell me another one"

"Not just now, dear." His oxygen gauge showed empty.

"Go on! Tell me a new one - a better one."

"Not now, dear. That's the best story Hazel knows. The very best. I told it to you again because I want you to remember it." She watched his anoxia warning signal turn red, then quietly disconnected the partly filled bottle on her own suit, closing the now useless suit valves, and replaced his empty bottle with hers. For a moment she considered cross-connecting the bottle to both suits, then shrugged and let it stand. "Lowell -"

"What, Grandma?"

"Listen to me, dear. You've heard me calling for help. You've got to do it now. Every few minutes, all the time."

"Why?"

"Because Hazel is tired, dear. Hazel has to sleep. Promise me you'll do it"

"Well... all right"

She tried to hold perfectly still, to breathe as little of the air left in her suit as possible. It wasn't so bad, she thought She had wanted to see the Rings - but there wasn't much else she had missed. She supposed everyone had his Carcassonne; she had no regrets.

"Grandma! Grandma Hazel!" She did not answer. He waited, then began to cry, endlessly and without hope.

Dr. Stone arrived back at the Rolling Stone to find only her husband there. She greeted himand added, "Where's Hazel, dear? and Lowell?"

"Eh? Didn't they come back with you? I supposed they had stopped in the store."

"No, of course not"

"Why "of course not"?"

She explained the arrangement; he looked at her in stunned astonishment 'They left the same time you did?"

"They intended to. Hazel said she would be home in forty-five minutes."

"There's a bare possibility that they are still with the Eakers. We'll find out." He lunged toward the door.

The twins returned to find their home and City Hall as well in turmoil. They had been spending an interesting and instructive several hours with old Charlie.

Their father turned away from the Stone's radio and demanded, "Where have you two been?"

"Just over in Charlie's hole. What's the trouble?"

Roger Stone explained. The twins looked at each other. "Dad," Castor said painfully, "you mean Hazel took Mother out in our scooter?"

"Certainly." The twins questioned each other wordlessly again.

'Why shouldn't she? Speak up."

"Well, you... well, it was like this -"

"Speak up!"

" There was a bearing wobble, or something, in one of the gyros," Pollux admitted miserably. We were working on it"

"You were? In Charlie's place!"

"Well, we went over there to see what he had in the way of spare parts and, well, we got detained, sort of."

Their father looked at them for several seconds with no expression of any sort. He then said in a flat voice, "You left a piece of ship's equipment out of commission. You failed to log it. You failed to report it to the Captain. He paused. "Go to your room."

"But Dad! We want to help!"

"Stay in your room; you are under arrest"

The twins did as they were ordered. While they waited, the whole of Rock City was alerted. The word went out: the doctor's little boy is missing; the boy's grandmother is missing. Fuel up your scooters; stand by to help. Stay on this wave length.

"Pol, quit muttering!"

Pollux turned to his brother. "How can I help it?"

"They can't be lost, not really lost Why, the stereo itself would stand out on a screen like a searchlight"