"The forward rockets are building up. They'll go any minute."

A bellowing geyser of dust-shrouded flame roared up. Flying metal clattered brutally on their shelter.

"Just in time," he said. Ria lay on the ground, retching weakly. "Well, the security boys get a new ship. They'll be happy. From here on, we walk. I hope you're satisfied."

The upper limb of an immense crescent rose above the horizon. Jupiter. Its sombre light revealed a savage wasteland of barren rock and volcanic ash.

"Come on, Babe. You should enjoy this. It's thirty miles, and the walking's bad. But we like it that way, don't we?"

Sulkily, Ria got to her feet and followed him.

The Martian Express Liner, Phobos, went into full gear with a velocity of 89 Martian gravities. After detouring the dangerous asteroid belt, the ship nosed down in a long curving glide to intercept the orbit of Mars. Far ahead was a blurred crescent of red, glowing with soft radiance against a star-sprinkled void. Lee Heydrick watched the planet swing slowly across the field of the glass. A deep unrest troubled him, but he refused to face the mask it might wear and tried to force it out of his mind.

"We should be there in fourteen hours," the co-pilot said.

"That'll be a relief. This is one job I don't like."

The pilot glanced at them sourly. "I thought you were through with the service," he shot at Heydrick.

"I am—it's my last job. I can't live on any of the inner planets after being exposed to the zero-rays of outer space. It takes six months for a resignation to go through in the Space Patrol. My time is up in two weeks and four days. After that, I'll have to stick to the places outside the asteroid belt or resign myself to a very brief life—18 months, at the outside."

"Too bad. What're you going to do?"

"I don't know. Maybe settle on one of the Moons of Saturn. They aren't too crowded. I'll be glad to be free again. Silly, isn't it—when you think of the way I used to look forward to being in Space Patrol! My folks were refugees from earth—lived in the icy marshes near the northern ice-cap of Mars. I ran away from home to go to Canal City 9 and study for the Patrol. My grades were good enough to impress Tyko. He took me into his home. My folks 

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