For a second Freedman felt elation because he had once more battled with nature and won. Then he remembered Jerry Graham, stretched lifelessly on the bunk in the room below.

The fight was just starting.

The girl stood on the apron near the hangar. Though it was dark, he knew her at once. In the light of the moon, she seemed more like a ghost than a woman. Her hair was like a soft gold crown. Her dress, cut close to her body, was white and of rare Vestena silk.

Freedman wanted to avoid her, and yet there was that mystery that clung to her and forced him to walk toward her.

"You've come back from the tunnel," she said.

Her voice was low.

He nodded. He was tired. He had just called the authorities and asked them to remove Graham's body from the Z1000. The tunnel was open again and the fleet guarded it. He needed rest.

"The tunnel is open. You told me I was a tin-horn sport. I don't know who you are, but you were right. I'm working in the tunnel again. That's what you wanted."

Though he had seen her only once before, he was anxious to please her. She was like an angel, appearing only when he needed her, and slipping away into the night again.

"You're still feeling very much like a hero, aren't you?" she challenged. "You've just opened the tunnel. You're tired and you want to be alone. You've done something big and wonderful."

He didn't try to explain to her. He didn't tell her of Jerry's crushed body in the ship and how he, himself, felt crushed and weary.

"No ... I...."

"Don't talk to me," she said scornfully. Fire danced in her eyes. The fresh wind sent her hair, the flimsy gown, flying in the wind. "I told you I loved you once."

"I don't even know you," he protested. "Why have you chosen me?"

Her voice was steady now. Steady and like a whip lash.

"Because I knew you from the time you entered the patrol as a boy," she said. "I worshipped you from afar, and I know of everything you did. I talked to my father every day, sometimes more often than that. He thought the planet system would have fallen apart if you hadn't 

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