Fat-legged and stiff, the men of Third Platoon waddled through the doorway and down the ramp into the bug-juice. One by one they went under, tugging themselves along through the turbulent area, past that; then turning over in three planes so that the man behind them could spot bubbles coming from any part of their safety-suit. A leak, of course, meant Decontamination. Decontamination meant an all-over shave, a load of antibiotics and quarantine. But it was better that one man should suffer this from time to time than that the Barracks should be sullied with a single bit of germ-laden dust.

The pale-green murk of the Wet Gut and the desert brightness of the Hot Gut were the gates of home, and welcome.

Hartford saw the Terrible Third off to their quarters, then got together with Piacentelli to go up to Officers' Country. It was good to un-clam helmets and breathe the inside air, smelling faintly green from having swept across the gardens on Level Eight. Hartford shucked off his blue suit and draped it over a refreshing unit. The device buzzed into action, washing, drying and recharging the safety-suit with fresh filters and reserve air and water. The moment the refresher had grunted an okay to his safety-suit, Hartford carried it, clean and sweet as the day it had left the Goodyear plant on Titan, to hang it up in his locker, ready for his next foray onto bug-dirt.

Piacentelli was already under a shower. "Come on, jay-bird," he shouted. "Last one out buys the beers."

"No contest," Hartford said, setting the shower-dial. "I'm gonna stay under water for three weeks." He revolved blissfully beneath cold and angry needles.

Piacentelli, snowed in with suds and steam, yelled through the blasting water. "How'd you rate O.G. the night we get in?" he asked. "I thought you were Nasty Nef's fairhaired boy."

Hartford turned off his shower. "I got nothing better to do," he said. He stood on the drier for a minute. "I don't mind being Officer of the Guard, so long as I can eat supper off a plate instead of through a tube." He stepped into his shorts, pulled on sneakers and tugged on a tee-shirt that had stenciled over its shoulders the two half-inch gold stripes of his rank.

Pia dressed in a similar uniform. "It isn't the Messhall I miss," he said. "It's this. No number of ingenious engines, valves and relief-tubes can still my nostalgia for the simple dignity of our Barracks latrines."

Junior Officers' 

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