is serious, Pete," she wailed. "Answer me."

"I am answering you," I said. "I'm telling you there wasn't any fight. Jet Markham cooled them off."

"But how worked up did Steve get? Would he try to do anything desperate in the race—like trying to wreck Skid's rocket?"

"Hold it, kid," I said. "Just what did those little spacies say?"

Before she could answer, one of the little Celetron robots came clicking up and tried to push the sliding cockpit cover shut under Suvia's nose. She brushed it off with a sweep of her arm, causing it to whir plaintively. That's one thing about women, even Suvia, they've no respect for machinery. Those robots are precision instruments, too.

"It was that little dancer Azi Maruu runs around with," she said then, "who was doing most of the talking. I gathered Maruu has been needling Steve all week until he's reached a stage where he'll just about go out there and try to wreck Skid's rocket if it kills them both. The little dancer was spilling all this dope because she wanted the troupe to bet everything on Maruu to cop the 'Double.'"

That made sense in pieces big enough to start a meteor. Shades of little galaxies, I thought bitterly, the one day I decide to go out and drive a race, a thing like this has to happen.

"Guys have tried to wreck Skid before, baby," I said, trying to keep the trouble out of my voice. "I wouldn't give it another thought. Now you'd better let Percy here get those boom magnets fixed before he blows a tube."

My big, scarlet-finned Comet slid into the starting tube with hardly a jolt. From the corner of my eye I could see the familiar golden bulk of Sirius 50, its outlines somewhat blurred by the semi-transparent walls of the starting tube. On the other side, in the pole position, a gleaming white Tri Planet-built Star Car was being swung into place. The driver of the Star Car was a new-comer to the circuit—a nice looking blond-headed kid who brought his rocket up from Antarctica for this race.

The white Star Car was the last rocket to go into the tubes and it filled out the top tier. There are four of these tiers with five tubes to the tier here at Astrola, as at most of the newer tracks. The favorites usually draw the lower tier, where the pull of the force field is tougher and the going slower. This makes for closer and more exciting races since the rockets scramble for the better 

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