center. The maneuver was very difficult. On the left 
and on the right sharp edged points of rock threatened 
to slit the body of the large ship. But the pilot made 
it. Only a few meters over the plateau he stopped the 
downward movement. The tongues of fire from the 
engines brought the rock to a glow. 
   Suddenly, Commander Koenig jerkily bent himself 
forward. He had seen something. 
   "Mark!" He pointed to the viewscreen, which 
conveyed detailed views of the plateau surface. 
   The pilot stared at the viewscreen. His eyes widened 
with astonishment. 
   "Dammit, it can't be!" 
   Helena, who could no longer stay passively in the  
passenger compartment and had come forward, stated 
in words what the two men had seen. 
   "Footprints!" she said of the view on the screen. 
"Those are clearly the traces of humans." 
   "Yes", nodded the Commander, "It does look that 
way."
   There was hardly a doubt. The thin dust layer, which 
covered the plateau, was stirred up. Isolated passages, 
clearly visibly, showed without a doubt the form of 
human shoe prints. 
   John Koenig quickly considered. It was of course 
possible that these traces came from days long past. 
An early expedition from the Earth could have left them, 
at that time, when humans had set first their feet on the 
Moon. Since there was no wind and no rain on the 
Moon, such prints would last thousands of years. But 
this explanation seemed to him too simple, particularly 
since he had never heard of an expedition into this area. 
And then the question about the bioplasmic field 
remained. . . 

9