Neptune right handy ... and he needed seventy hours or so to repair the plates.

Simple.

Funny about that radio though. All of a sudden, without warning or reason, it had gone dead. And the gravity plates, too. Then that strange, rending sensation when he was approximately halfway of the mean distance between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. A strong force had seemed to grip the ship and wrestle with it for a few frenzied seconds.

Then the dead radio and the fouled-up plates.

But here was Neptune, bulging on the screen.

Darrel concentrated on his instruments—and began to check the ship's speed.

Before venturing out the airlock, he made a superficial check of the gravity plates. Not too bad. He could probably repair them in less than the seventy hours he'd thought he would need. The radio was in flawless condition. He switched on the transmitter, and sent signals crashing powerfully out into space. But the receiver received nothing. Not a spark, not a gasp.

Might as well look around outside.

Outside, unexpectedly, there was a girl. So beautiful it was a physical shock. Raven-black hair, cream skin and a small, sharply-outlined figure clothed in a strangely translucent yellow tunic. An incarnation of delicate loveliness. Fragile. Unbelievable.

She stood about twenty feet from the ship—waving. Waving listlessly and with an expression of infinite sadness on her face.

Darrel watched, dumbfounded, as the girl walked toward him hesitantly. Tears were glistening on her cheeks. Real human tears!

She kissed him. Soundly.

Darrel tottered and leaned against the airlock as the girl smiled at him sadly, wistfully, and then went off slowly, walking—backwards!

Darrel shook his head. Backwards! The girl strode along with uncanny confidence, not looking where she was going, until she stopped about twenty yards away and sat down on the ground facing him.

Darrel sat down too.

Hallucinations! He was space-happy! It had finally happened. Caroming around in space did things to people, mostly psychological things. The system's sanitariums were full of old space dogs who had 

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