But the reception committee was ready for the exigency. One of them was swinging a weighted line around his head; he let the end of it swing farther and farther out. As she started to move past the side of the War God he swung it against her safety line; the weighted end wrapped itself around her line. Back at the Rolling Stone Roger Stone snubbed her line and stopped her; the man on the liner gently pulled her in.

The second man caught her and snapped a hook to her belt, then unfastened the long line from the Stone. Before she entered the lock she waved, and the door closed.

Roger Stone looked at the closed door for a moment, then pulled in the line. He let his eyes drop to the pair of little boots left standing empty beside him. He pulled them loose, held them to him, and plodded back to his own airlock.

IX - ASSETS RECOVERABLE

The twins kept out of their father's way for the next several days. He was unusually tender and affectionate with all of them but he never smiled and his mood was likely to flare suddenly and unexpectedly into anger. They stayed in their bunkroom and pretended to study they actually did study some of the time. Meade and Hazel split the care of Lowell between them; the child's feeling of security was damaged by the absence of his mother. He expressed it by temper tantrums and demands for attention.

Hazel took over the cooking of lunch and dinner; she was no better at it than Meade. She could be heard twice a day, burning herself and swearing and complaining that she was not the domestic type and never had had any ambitions that way. Never!

Dr. Stone phoned once a day, spoke briefly with her husband, and begged off from speaking to anyone else for the reason that she was much too busy. Roger Stone's explosions of temper were most likely to occur shortly after these daily calls.

Hazel alone had the courage to quiz him about the calls. On the sixth day at lunch she said, "Well, Roger? What was the news today? Give."

"Nothing much. Hazel, these chops are atrocious.'.

"They ought to be good; I flavored 'em with my own blood." She held out a bandaged thumb. "Why don't you try cooking? But back to the subject. Don't evade me, boy."

"She thinks she's on the track of something. So far as she can tell from their medical records, nobody has caught it so far who is known to have had measles."

Meade said, "Measles? People don't die of that, do they?"

"Hardly ever," agreed her grandmother, "though it can be fairly serious in an adult."

"I didn't say it was measles," her father answered testily, "nor did your mother. She thinks it's related to measles, a mutant strain maybe more virulent."

"Call it "neomeasles"," suggested Hazel. "That's a good question-begging tag and it has an impressive scientific sound to it Any more deaths, Roger?"

"Well, yes."

"How many?"

"She wouldn't say. Van is still alive, though, and she says that he is recovering. She told me," he added, as if trying to convince himself, "that she thought she was learning how to treat it."

"Measles," Hazel said thoughtfully. "You've never had it, Roger."

"No."

"Nor any of the kids."

"Of course not," put in Pollux. Luna City was by long odds the healthiest place in the known universe; the routine child­hood diseases of Earth had never been given a chance to establish.

"How did she sound, Son?"

"Dog tired." He frowned. "She even snapped at me."

"Not Mummy!"

"Quiet, Meade." Hazel went on, "I've had measles, seventy or eighty years ago. Roger, I had better go over and help her."

He smiled without humor. "She anticipated that. She said to tell you thanks but she had all the unskilled help she could use."

""Unskilled help!" I like that! Why, during the epidemic of '93 there were times when I was the only woman in the colony able to change a bed. Hummph!"

Hazel deliberately waited around for the phone call the next day, determined to get a few words at least with her daughter-in-law. The call came in about the usual time; Roger took it. It was not his wife.

"Captain Stone? Turner, sir Charlie Turner. I'm the third engineer. Your wife asked me to phone you."

"What's the matter? She busy?"

"Quite busy."

"Tell her to call me as soon as she's free. I'll wait by the board."

"I'm afraid that's no good, sir. She was quite specific that she would not be calling you today. She won't have time."

"Fiddlesticks! It will only take her thirty seconds. In a big ship like yours you can hook her in wherever she is."

The man sounded embarrassed. "I'm sorry, sir. Dr. Stone gave strict orders not to be disturbed."

"But confound it, I -"

"I'm very sorry, sir. Good-by." He left him sputtering into a dead circuit.

Roger Stone remained quiet for several moments, then turned a stricken face to his mother. "She's caught it."

Hazel answered quietly, "Don't jump to conclusions, Son." But in her own heart she had already reached the same con­clusion. Edith Stone had contracted the disease she had gone to treat.

The same barren stall was given Roger Stone on the following day; by the third day they gave up the pretence. Dr. Stone was ill, but her husband was not to worry. She had already, before she gave into it herself, progressed far enough in standardizing a treatment that all the new cases - hers among them - were doing nicely. So they said.

No, they would not arrange a circuit to her bed. No, he could not talk to Captain Vandenbergh; the Captain was still too ill.

"I'm coming over!" Roger Stone shouted.

Turner hesitated. "That's up to you, Captain. But if you do, we'll have to quarantine you here. Dr. Stone's written orders."

Roger Stone switched off. He knew that that settled it; in matters medical Edith was a Roman judge - and he could not abandon his own ship, his family, to get to Mars by them­selves. One frail old woman, two cocksure half-trained student pilots - no, he had to take his ship in.

They sweated it out The cooking got worse, when anyone bothered to cook. It was seven endless, Earth-standard days later when the daily call was answered by, "Roger - hello, darling!"

"Edith! Are you all right?"

"Getting that way."

"What's your temperature?"

"Now, darling, I won't have you quack-doctoring me. My temperature is satisfactory, as is the rest of my physical being. I've lost a little weight, but I could stand to - don't you think?"

"No, I don't. Listen - you come home! You hear me?"

"Roger dearest! I can't and that's settled. This entire ship is under quarantine. But how is the rest of my family?"

"Oh, shucks, fine, fine! We're all in the pink."

"Stay that way. I'll call you tomorrow. Bye, dear."

Dinner that night was a celebration. Hazel cut her thumb again, but not even she cared.

The daily calls, no longer a naging worry but a pleasure, continued. It was a week later that Dr. Stone concluded by saying 'Hold on, dear. A friend of yours wants to speak with you."

"Okay, darling: Love and stuff - good-by."

"Roger Dodger?" came a bass voice.

"Van! You squareheaded bay window! I knew you were too mean to die."

"Alive and kicking, thanks to your wonderful wife. But no longer with a bay window; I haven't had time to regrow it yet"

"You will."

"No doubt. But I was asking the good doctor about something and she couldn't give me much data. Your department Rog, how did this speed run leave you for single-H? Could you use some g-juice?"

Captain Stone considered it. "Have you any surplus, Captain?"