"In a yatch?" Drusilla sneered. "Why can't you have a yatch?"

"My salary. I hoped to pick up enough ore in the Rings, this trip, but we had to bring you back, and--"

"You act as if it were my fault!" Drusilla squeaked.

The plates of the Box vibrated slightly as the spacecopter threw out magnetic grapplers and reeled in until the fuselages touched. The airlock of the slender plane opened to release three spacesuited figures. "Men!" Drusilla gasped. Her hands flew in instinctive twitches to red tattooed lips, blue tattooed eyelids, and green dyed hair.

Jak's pointed chin seemed to grow longer. He sighed. He shook his head and muttered, "Probably want to borrow a welding rod. I remember once in the Albert Group, a miner boarded me looking almost devitalized, and all he wanted was a can opener to--"

"Spare me the anecdotes," said Drusilla, surveying her surgically tilted nose in a small mirror. "That's all I've heard for three months."

Jak's shoulders heaved in a greater sigh. He hoped for no more trips like this one. During endless earth-days he had cruised the Cassini Division of the Rings of Saturn, picking up a little yttrium, antimony and platinum, with Drusilla sunk in depths of boredom and rarely leaving the plane. The arrival of the viewnote informing her that her Self Portrait had won first prize in the Interearth Photographic Salon had elated her for several days; but then she had announced, one earth-morning, the development of an acute case of pregnancy. Since the much published history of Lar BW16177 on Hungaria throbbed vivid in his mind, Jak could do nothing except set a course for Luna, carrying half empty ore bins and four months of unexpired leave.

A bulb on the instrument panel blinked to signal the opening of the outer airlock door. Jak said, "If I can't greet them in uniform, I'll have to go like this." He adjusted his trunks and stood by the airlock, which placed him head down in relation to Drusilla posing by the strangely silent radio.

Lar BW16177, stranded on the asteroid, had been devitalized horribly when, under low gravity, the fetus had developed with unprecedented rapidity. Jak had set the fastest course he thought safe for Drusilla, 6,240,000,000 kilometers at 1 G acceleration, 208,000,000 kilometers in free fall, and 6,240,000,000 kilometers at 1 G deceleration. He had tried to keep Drusilla occupied with her photographic hobby and its 

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