«I'm not blaming them. But I've got to have fast action and Sis'll do what I ask her. I'll phrase the message so she'll know it's me. The only hurdle now is to persuade the Purser to let me send a message on tick.»

He was gone for a long time on this mission. Hartley waited with Wingate, both to keep him company and because of a strong human interest in unusual events. When Jones finally appeared he wore a look of tight-lipped annoyance. Wingate, seeing the expression, felt a sudden, chilling apprehension. «Couldn't you send it? Wouldn't he let you?»

«Oh, he let me – finally,» Jones admitted, «but that Purser – man, is he tight!»

Even without the alarm gongs Wingate would have been acutely aware of the grounding at Luna City. The sudden change from the high gravity deceleration of their approach to the weak surface gravity – one-sixth earth normal – of the Moon took immediate toll on his abused stomach. It was well that he had not eaten much. Both Hartley and Jones were deepspace men and regarded enough acceleration to permit normal swallowing as adequate for any purpose. There is a curious lack of sympathy between those who are subject to spacesickness and those who are immune to it. Why the spectacle of a man regurgitating, choked, eyes streaming with tears, stomach knotted with pain, should seem funny is difficult to see, but there it is. It divides the human race into two distinct and antipathetic groups – amused contempt on one side, helpless murderous hatred on the other.

Neither Hartley nor Jones had the inherent sadism which is too frequently evident on such occasions – for example the great wit who suggests salt pork as a remedy – but, feeling no discomfort themselves, they were simply unable to comprehend (having forgotten the soul-twisting intensity of their own experience as new chums) that Wingate was literally suffering «a fate worse than death» – much worse, for it was stretched into a sensible eternity by a distortion of the time sense known only to sufferers from spacesicknesses, seasicknesses, and (we are told) smokers of hashish.

As a matter of fact, the stop on the Moon was less than four hours long. Toward the end of the wait Wingate had quieted down sufficiently again to take an interest in the expected reply to Jones' message, particularly after Jones had assured him that he would be able to spend the expected layover under bond at Luna City in a hotel equipped with a centrifuge.

But the answer was delayed. Jones had expected to hear from his sister within an hour, perhaps before the Evening Star grounded at the Luna City docks. As the hours stretched out he managed to make himself very unpopular at the radio room by his repeated inquiries. An over-worked clerk had sent him brusquely about his business for the seventeenth time when he heard the alarm sound preparatory to raising ship; he went back and admitted to Wingate that his scheme had apparently failed.

«Of course, we've got ten minutes yet,» he finished unhopefully, «if the message should arrive before they raise ship, the Captain could still put us aground at the last minute. We'll go back and haunt 'em some more right up to the last. But it looks like a thin chance.»

«Ten minutes – « said Wingate, «couldn't we manage somehow to slip outside and run for it?»

Jones looked exasperated. «Have you ever tried running in a total vacuum?»

Wingate had very little time in which to fret on the passage from Luna City to Venus. He learned a great deal about the care and cleaning of washrooms, and spent ten hours a day perfecting his new skill. Masters-at-Arms have long memories.

The Evening Star passed beyond the limits of ship-to-Terra radio communication shortly after leaving Luna City; there was nothing to do but wait until arrival at Adonis, port of the north polar colony.

The company radio there was strong enough to remain in communication at all times except for the sixty days bracketing superior conjunction and a shorter period of solar interference at inferior conjunction. «They will probably be waiting for us with a release order when we ground,» Jones assured Wingate, «and we'll go back on the return trip of the Evening Star – first class, this time. Or, at the very worst, we'll have to wait over for the Morning Star. That wouldn't be so bad, once I get some credit transferred; we could spend it at Venusburg.»

«I suppose you went there on your cruise,» Wingate said, curiosity showing in his voice. He was no Sybarite, but the lurid reputation of the most infamous, or famous – depending on one's evaluations – pleasure city of three planets was enough to stir the imagination of the least hedonistic.

«No – worse luck!» Jones denied. «I was on a hull inspection board the whole time. Some of my messmates went, though ... boy!» He whistled softly and shook his head.

But there was no one awaiting their arrival, nor was there any message. Again they stood around the communication office until told sharply and officially to get on back to their quarters and stand by to disembark, « – and be quick about it!»

«I'll see you in the receiving barracks, Hump,» were Jones' last words before he hurried off to his own compartment.

The Master-at-Arms responsible for the compartment in which Hartley and Wingate were billeted lined his charges up in a rough column of two's and, when ordered to do so by the metallic bray of the ship's loudspeaker, conducted them through the central passageway and down four decks to the lower passenger port. It stood open; they shuffled through the lock and out of the ship – not into the free air of Venus, but into a sheetmetal tunnel which joined it, after some fifty yards, to a building.

The air within the tunnel was still acrid from the atomized antiseptic with which it had been flushed out, but to Wingate it was nevertheless fresh and stimulating after the stale flatness of the repeatedly reconditioned air of the transport. That, plus the surface gravity of Venus, five-sixths of earth-normal, strong enough to prevent nausea yet low enough to produce a feeling of lightness and strength – these things combined to give him an irrational optimism, an up-and-at-'em frame of mind.

The exit from the tunnel gave into a moderately large room, windowless but brilliantly and glarelessly lighted from concealed sources. It contained no furniture.

«Squaaad – HALT!» called out the Master-at-Arms, and handed papers to a slight, clerkish-appearing man who stood near an inner doorway. The man glanced at the papers, counted the detachment, then signed one sheet, which he handed back to the ship's petty officer who accepted it and returned through the tunnel.

The clerkish man turned to the immigrants. He was dressed, Wingate noted, in nothing but the briefest of shorts, hardly more than a strap, and his entire body, even his feet, was a smooth mellow tan. «Now men,» he said in a mild voice, «strip off your clothes and put them in the hopper.» He indicated a fixture set in one wall.

«Why?» asked Wingate. His manner was uncontentious but he made no move to comply.

«Come now,» he was answered, still mildly but with a note of annoyance, «don't argue. It's for your own protection. We can't afford to import disease.»

Wingate checked a reply and unzipped his coverall. Several who had paused to hear the outcome followed his example. Suits, shoes, underclothing, socks, they all went into the hopper. «Follow me,» said their guide.

In the next room the naked herd were confronted by four «barbers» armed with electric clippers and rubber gloves who proceeded to clip them smooth. Again Wingate felt disposed to argue, but decided the issue was not worth it. But he wondered if the female labor clients were required to submit to such drastic quarantine precautions. It would be a shame, it seemed to him, to sacrifice a beautiful head of hair that had been twenty years in growing.