Conrad shrugged and grinned. "Don't let it throw you. By the time you have helped install the equipment in your own ship, you'll know it the way your foot knows your shoe. Meantime, let's run through it again."

Aside from instructions there was nothing to do and the ship was too small and too crowded in any case. A card game ran almost continuously. Don had very little money to start with; very soon he had none and was no longer part of the game. He slept and he thought.

Phipps had been right, he decided; travel at this speed would change things-people would go planet-jumping as casually as they now went from continent to continent on Earth. It would be like-well, like the change from sailing ships to trans-ocean rockets, only the change would be overnight, instead of spread over three centuries.

Maybe he would go back to Earth someday; Earth had its points-horseback riding, for instance. He wondered if Lazy still remembered him?

He'd like to teach Isobel to ride a horse. He'd like to see her face when she first laid eyes on a horse!

One thing he knew: he would not stay on Earth, even if he did go back. Nor would he stay on Venus-nor on Mars. He knew now where he belonged-in space, where he was born. Any planet was merely a hotel to him; space was his home.

Maybe he would go out in the Pathfinder, out to the stars. He had a sneaking hunch that, if they came through this stunt alive, a member of the original crew of the Little David would be able to wangle it to be chosen for the Long Trip. Of course, the Pathfinder was limited to married couples only, but that was not an obstacle. He was certain that he would be married in time to qualify although he could not remember clearly just when he had come by that knowledge. And Isobel was the whither-thou-goest sort; she wouldn't hold him back. The Pathfinder would not leave right away in any case; they would wait to change over to the Horst-Milne-Conrad drive, once they knew about it.

In any event he meant to stir around a bit, do some traveling, once the war was over. They would surely have to transfer him to the High Guard when he got back, then High Guard experience would stand him in good stead when he was a discharged veteran. Come to think about it, maybe he was already in the High Guard, so to speak.

McMasters had certainly been right; there was just one way to get to Mars-in a spacing task force.

He looked around him. The inevitable card game was still in progress and two of his mates were shooting dice on the deckplates, the cubes spinning lazily in the low paragravity field. Conrad had opened up his chair and was stretched out asleep, his mouth open. He decided that it certainly did not look like a world-saving task force; the place had more the air of an unmade bed.

They were due to "come out" on the eleventh day, within easy free fall of Mars, and-if all guesses had been rightclose by the Federation task force, making almost a photo finish with those ships. "Gadget class" gave way to drill at battle stations. Rhodes picked Art Frankel, who had had some shiphandling experience, as his co-pilot; Conrad was assisted by Franklyn Chiang, a physicist like himself. Of the other four, two were on radio, two on radar. ;Don's battle station was a saddle amidships, back of the pilots' chairs-the "dead man's" seat. Here he guarded a springloaded demolition switch, a type of switch known through the centuries as a "dead-man" switch for the contrary reason that it operated only if its operator were dead.

At first drill Conrad got the others squared away, then came back to Don's station. "You savvy what you are to do, Don?"

"Sure. I throw this switch to arm the bomb, then I hang onto the dead-man switch."

"No, no! Grab the dead-man switch first-then close the arming switch"

"Yes, sure. I just said it backwards."

"Be sure you don't do it backwards! Just remember this, Lieutenant: if you let go, everything does."

"Okay. Say, Rog, this thing triggers an A-bomb-right?"

"Wrong. We should waste so much money! But the load of H.E. in there is plenty for a little can like this, I assure you. So, anxious as we are to blow up this packet rather than let it be captured, don't let go of that switch otherwise. If you feel a need to scratch, rise above it."

Captain Rhodes came aft and with a motion of his head sent Conrad forward. He spoke to Don in a low voice, such that his words did not reach the others. "Harvey, are you satisfied with this assignment? You don't mind it?"

"No, I don't mind," Don answered. "I know the others all have more technical training than I have. This is my speed."

"That's not what I mean," the Captain corrected. "You could fill any of the other seats, except mine and Dr. Conrad's. I want to be sure you can do this job."

"I don't see why not. Grab onto this switch, and then close that one-and hang on for dear life. It sure doesn't take any higher mathematics to do that."

"That's still not what I mean. I don't know you, Harvey. I understand you have had combat experience. These others haven't-which is why you have this job. Those who do know you think you can do it. I'm not worried that you might forget to hang on; what I want to know is this: if it becomes necessary to let go of that switch, can you do it?"

Don answered almost at once-but not before there had been time for him to think of several things-Dr. Jefferson, who had almost certainly suicided, not simply died-Old Charlie with his mouth quivering but his cleaver hand steady and sure-and an undying voice ringing through the fog, "Venus and Freedom!".

"Guess I can if I have to."

"Good. I'm by no means sure that I could. I'm depending on you, sir, if worse comes to worst, not to let my ship be captured." He went forward.

Tension mounted, tempers got edgy. They had no way to be sure that they would come out near the Federation task force; that force might be using something other than what was assumed to be the maximum-performance orbit. They could not even be certain that the Federation forces were not already on Mars, already in command and difficult to dislodge. The Little David's laboratory miracles were designed for ship-to-ship encounter in space, not for mopping up on the surface of a planet.

Conrad had another worry, one that he did not voice, that the ship's weapons might not work as planned. More than any of the rest he knew the weakness of depending on theoretical predictions. He knew how frequently the most brilliant computations were confounded by previously unsuspected natural laws. There was no substitute for test-and these weapons had not been tested. He lost his habitual grin and even got into a bad-tempered difference of opinion with Rhodes as to the calculated time of "coming out."

The difference of opinion was finally settled; a half hour later Rhodes said quietly, "It's almost time, gentlemen. Battle stations." He went to his own seat, strapped himself in, and snapped, "Report!"'

"Co-pilot."

"Radio!"

"Radar!"

"Special weapons ready."

"Dead man!" Don finished.

There was a long wait while the seconds oozed slowly away. Rhodes spoke quietly into a microphone, warning Malath to be ready for free fall, then called out, "Stand by!" Don took a tighter grip on the demolition switch.

Suddenly he was weightless; ahead of him and in the passenger ports on each side the stars burst into being. He could not see Mars and decided that it must be "under" the ship. The Sun was somewhere aft; it was not in his eyes. But his view ahead was excellent; the Little David, having begun life as a winged shuttle, had an airplane-type conning port in front of the piloting chairs. Don's position let him see as clearly as Rhodes and his co-pilot and much better than could the others.

"Radar?" inquired Rhodes.

"Take it easy, Skipper. Even the speed of light is-Oh, oh! Blips!"