pattern, I presume. Feed it to Fido!"

[130] "Yes, sir, but well ... I just don't—"

[130]

"Do you think I like it?" asked the Director, fiercely.

In the silence that followed, they looked at each other, guiltily.

"There's nothing else we can do," said the Director. "The orders are explicit. No one escapes from Hades!"

"I know," replied the biophysicist. "I'm not blaming you. Only I wish someone else had my job."

"Well," said the Director, heavily. "You might as well get started." He nodded his head in dismissal.

As the biophysicist went out the door, the Director looked down once more at the pile of papers before him. He pulled the top sheet closer, and rubber-stamped across its face—CASE CLOSED.

"Yes," he mused aloud. "Closed for us, but—" He hesitated a moment, and then sighing once more, signed his name in the space provided.

AUGUST 6, 430th Year GALACTIC ERA

Tee Ormond sat morosely at the spaceport bar, and alternately wiped his forehead with a soggy handkerchief, and sipped at his frosted rainbow, careful not to disturb the varicolored layers of liquid in the tall narrow glass. Every now and then he nervously ran his fingers through his straight black hair, which lay damply plastered to his head. His jacket was faded and worn, and above the left pocket was emblazoned the meteor insignia of the spaceman. A dark patch on his back showed where the perspiration had seeped through. He blinked and rubbed the corner of his eye as a drop of perspiration ran down and settled there.

A casual look would have classified him as a very average looking pilot such as could be found at the bar of any spaceport; i.e. if space pilots can ever be classified as average. Spacemen are the last true adventurers in an age where the debilitating culture of a highly mechanized civilization has pushed to the very borders of the galaxy. While most men are fearful and indecisive outside their narrow specialties the spacemen must at all times be ready to deal with 

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