dreams of a space pilot’s career. Toby was looking in the direction of the mist-covered globe, five thousand miles away, which was Earth. The space station was a celestial lookout, a scientific laboratory, and a harbor for space-going rockets.

“What’re you thinking, Toby?” asked Lou Penner, his roommate.

“I’m wondering if I should take Dr. Shepard and Deb to Luna,” Toby answered.

“Are you crazy?” Lou blurted. “Do you think they’d ride with you after all that mess that happened last week? Remember, too, you never did get along with Deb’s dad very well.”

Toby turned from the window, his sturdy shoulders slumped in defeat, a brooding unhappiness on his sensitive face. “You sound just like the others, Lou,” he said bitterly.

“I’m not saying I believe you were responsible for the accident,” Lou said carefully. “I’m just giving you the cold facts.”

Just then over the wall speaker of their room came another appeal for a pilot to carry the doctor and his daughter, who was a nurse trainee, on the desperate mission to Luna to administer antitoxin in the sudden outbreak of contagious fever.

“There’s no one else, Lou,” Toby said. “I’m the only licensed pilot on the space station right now. You’ve got fifty hours to go yet on yours, and the express bringing other pilots from Mars won’t be in for a long time. A delay may let the fever grow into an epidemic.” Toby opened his locker and began pulling out flying gear. “I’m going to try it, Lou.”

“How are you going to get the doctor to ride with you?” Lou wanted to know.

“Just keep out of his sight until we’ve blasted off and are on our way,” Toby said. “Then he’ll have to go along.”

Lou grinned at him. “I should have guessed you’d try this, knowing how daring you are and your mania for helping people.”

The event which had been ruinous for Toby had occurred when he had been piloting a sight-seeing rocket for vacationists from Earth. It was his first big job. While they were coming into dock on the giant revolving wheel which was the space station, something had happened to the braking rockets, and the ship had collided with the hangar, injuring several people. When it was discovered that nothing was wrong with the rockets, Toby was unofficially accused of negligence pending further investigation, although his license hadn’t been 

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