didn't try to get up immediately. I waited for the deck to stop gyrating and the strength to return to my wrists. My right arm was numb and tingling. When I raised my hands I could see the bones in my fingers. All pilots have skeleton hands when they take off. It's a second-order cathode ray effect which vanishes after a minute or two. It doesn't mean a thing. Not if you're sound of mind and limb, and the ship you've picked is spaceworthy.

But Pete seemed to take a different view. He was staring at me in horror. I knew what he was thinking. If I was pinch-hitting for Death—I'd got off to a good start.

He, too, was on his knees on the deck, his shoulders swaying, his face turned toward me in bitter reproach.

Suddenly his eyes blazed with anger. "Son, I ought to get up and bust you one on the jaw! If you'd warned me, I could have braced myself!"

I hadn't thought of that. But before I could tell him how sorry I felt, he was chuckling!

"It's all right, Jim! No bones broken! She sure took it beautifully, eh?"

"She sure did!" I muttered.

I watched him get to his feet and go reeling toward the viewpane. Mr. Chameleon was the name for him! He could change his moods so fast, his mental outlook must have been as dazzling as a display of fireworks.

A guy like that just couldn't hold a grudge. If you poked him in the ribs he'd blacken your eye and give you his last ounce of tobacco. Good old Pete! Insatiably curious he was too, like a little boy at a circus side show.

He just couldn't wait to see how far up we were, had to look out the viewpane before his brain stopped spinning.

I was satisfied just to sit on the deck and watch him.

For an instant he stared out, his face pressed to the pane, the pulse in his forehead swelling visibly.

Then, abruptly, he turned and flashed me a startled look. "Jehoshaphat, Jim! We—we can't be travelin' that fast! Callisto's just a little crawlin' red gnat in the middle o' the sky!"

CHAPTER II

Planet Shift

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