THE JET JOCKEYS

By R. W. STOCKHEKER

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

There was something in the way that little Venusian fire dancer looked at me when I passed her on my way down the ramp to the rocket racks to get Suvia Jalmin's shiny Space Midget that started me thinking.

This jet burn I picked up the time I pinwheeled into the force fence on the big Zeta socket track on Mars hadn't exactly left me looking like a glamor flash from the telecolor screens. Only up until now I had never let that worry me because the way I figure it you don't race rockets with your face anyhow.

The way I figure it, it's nerve not profile that slams the big sizzle sticks around the magnet bends.

Still, when I caught the look in that little space dame's eyes—as though I'm some kind of slime mutant fresh out of a spore bog—I got to wondering. I remembered a dozen other girls I had met suddenly in a dozen other dark corners.

I remembered why from one end of the Great Galaxy Circuit to the other I'm billed as "Death" Benton, and it's not because of the chances I take. And I remembered, finally, that in the last two years I've been making about as much headway with Suvia Jalmin as a hay-burning burro on a star lane.

All the rest of the way down to the racks I thought it over, and it always came out the same. I could see that what I needed was a quick trip down to that new Venusian super-clinic in the Interplanetary Settlement for a complete remodeling job. By the time I got back up to the starting platform with the Space Midget I had a plan for getting that remodeling job done, all worked out, neat and pretty, in my skull.

Suvia was waiting in front of the grandstand when I rolled her rocket off the pneumatic lift. The kid does a stunt act in between races that is considered tops in the Galaxy circuit. The Samson arcs, focusing on her, hit her curly, spun-honey hair, setting up a glow that put a gleaming nimbus around her crash helmet.

Suvia is one quarter Martian, a combination that makes her twice as gorgeous as anything else in curves on either Mars or Earth. Up in the stands the crowd was giving the usual big hand of appreciation at her 

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