"Maybe the next time I pass through." He winked. "If it's still open."

I relaxed and grinned at him. Somehow, I liked his looks just then.

"You shouldn't be gone too long. It's a good spot to put your ladder down."

He helped himself to more coffee and stared into his cup. I knew—the watches near the end of a hop when you wondered about the dead, oily air, when the ones off watch kept watching the astrogator's expression, when you got the idea it was time to come in out of the dark before you made that one slip.

How many pick their landing? I thought. How many never know how close they come to making their mistake, or being a statistic in somebody else's?

"Why the double trance?" asked Meadows.

He brought with him a vague memory of departing chatter and tramping feet in the background. Howlet shoved out a chair for him.

"Everything okay?" asked Jorgensen, bustling up. "Buy anyone a drink?"

"What have they got there ... coffee?" asked Meadows, sniffing.

"Jimmy!" yelled Jorgensen to a waiter. "Pot of coffee for Ron! Hot!"

He slapped Meadows' shoulder and took his glowing red face away.

"What makes him your buddy?" I asked Meadows.

"In the end, I missed Mercury by ten inches and they got most of it back!"

Then was no answer to that. He must have been half a million ahead.

"What about the sandeaters you promised to stake?" asked Howlet, grinning like a man who has seen it happen before but still enjoys it.

"Some of them helped me lose it," said Meadows. "Now they will all just have to use those tickets, I suppose. Where's Hughie and his little friend? Coffee all around and we'll get on course, eh?"

"Thought he was with you," answered Howlet.

"I'll look in the bar," I volunteered, remembering the kid had left with more of a roll than Meadows had now.

A casual search of the 

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