aboard. Yloop started the swamp-car again and drove away. He had asked for it. He had gotten it. He went off with it. That was that.

Then Joe stood up. "I hear," he said ungraciously. "I think. I talk later."

He turned his back on Ychan and walked into the reopened airlock. His expression was one concentrated scowl. He knew it, but he knew that to Ychan that expression meant simply tranquil and untroubled meditation. For Joe to have conveyed his actual emotions to the Ganymedian, he would have had to grin until his throat split.

He was pacing up and down the control-room of the Winship, deliberately coddling his fury to combat the cold chills that wanted to play tag up and down his spine, when Dick Harkness came in again. Rickey followed him sedately, at a sort of regulation distance.

The crew, of course, swore that Rickey knew Fleet regulations as well as an admiral, and that when he'd been caught with a lady Pomeranian visiting him on board, he'd confined himself to quarters for six weeks to the day. Now he looked warily at Joe.

"I'm sorry, Joe," said Dick Harkness contritely. "I went and warned the hands about grinning where Ganymedians could see them. But they were making bets on what Rickey'd do in a space-suit and unable to sniff, when he saw what he'd take for trees. It was too good a joke to resist. How'd you explain the grins? And shall I report our landing and delivery of the swamp-car?"

"I said," Joe told him bitterly, "that we were mad because Rickey'd killed four men. And you do not use the space-radio unless you want to commit suicide!"

Dick Harkness stared. "What—"

"Ganymedians," said Joe bitterly, "don't lie. They don't understand lying. Ychan just told me we'll be blown to bits if we use our space-phone or try to leave Ganymede."

"What's that? Who's going to try to stop us?"

"Martians," said Joe with exquisite bitterness. "Did you ever hear that there is some slight friction between the Martian government and that of Earth? Did you ever hear that if the Martians thought they had one percent edge over fifty of wiping us out and taking over the solar system they'd try it? Did you ever hear that only the technical superiority of Earth science has held off a war this far?"

Rickey moved up beside Dick and sat down. His 

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