The Gravity Business
had a goldfish of my very own!"

"Which you let die," Fred said dryly, "because you forgot to feed it."

"Oh, he's not afraid of _people_," Four told them. "He's afraid of space and unpolarized gravity and things like that. He's lived here all his life--that's a long time--and it makes him feel awful funny just to think about leaving. He says he can still remember the way our linear gravitation felt inside when we landed."

"Well," Joyce said firmly, "he'll just have to fight it, that's all. If a person let that kind of neurotic impulse rule his life, he'd be completely demoralized in no time."

Four glanced over his shoulder at Joyce, as if to see if she were joking. Shaking his head, he returned to the computer's innards. A moment later, he swung around and stared accusingly at Grampa. "You've cannibalized Abacus!"

"Well, now," Grampa protested, licking his lips nervously. "You see, I--"

"That's where you got the parts for the pircuits!" Four said with merciless logic.

Joyce stood up virtuously and shook her finger at Grampa. "First you entice us out here in this nasty old flivver; then you get us stuck; and now you've ruined the computer for your nasty old games!"

"Well, now," Grampa blustered, "the goldarn thing wouldn't work, would it? We didn't need it--not with Four around. He figures everything out in his head and we just used Abacus to sort of check him. Ain't that right now?"

Five pairs of eyes stared at him in silence.

"Well, now," Grampa said defensively, "I got it all worked out anyhow. We can leave here any time we get ready."

The land of the Fweep turned and grew small in the view screen, and Junior sat in the pilot's chair, his hand on the control stick, his eyes fixed on the moving dials in front of him.

There were three others in the room: Reba, who looked at the dwindling Fweepland and sighed; Joyce, who sat tautly in her chair, her face fixed and unbelieving; and Fred, who looked at Joyce and shook his head.

Grampa opened the door to his room and stepped cockily into the central cabin, shutting the door behind him. "Well?" he demanded confidently. "Are we heading for Earth?"


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