were through with him.

"Why did you want a ticket so much?" he asked. "You're making a lot of money, and you don't need any."

But Mr. Zytztz was exuberant. "Some day, when I get my master's ticket, I'll have a ship of my own. I couldn't command my own ship now without breaking the regulations, you know."

Healey was not surprised to see Mr. Zytztz down at the spaceport a few days later shuffling along the corridors, watching the ships come in, hoping each time that here was the one where he would get a third mate's berth so he could start working up.

But it was hopeless and Healey knew it. Mr. Zytztz had been labeled "not human," and nobody was going to hire him as third mate. They didn't dare to. Their crews would have jumped ship.

Three months later Healey dropped him off at Mars on the way to Jupiter. Mr. Zytztz was pretty wilted and limp-looking, but he said:

"Thanks, Admiral. See you in Havana."

On the way back to Earth, a shuttle-boat met them out from Mars, and Mr. Zytztz came through the air-lock.

"I have just talked to Mr. Morgan, who represents Ether Fleet, Inc.," he said happily. "He has practically promised me a berth if I can get a master's certificate."

Healey gasped. "A master's certificate!"

"Yes," Mr. Zytztz purred proudly. "He said all their mates hold master's certificates. So I am going back to Havana."

"He didn't actually promise you, though, did he?"

"No, sir, but that was the implication."

Healey thought that over for a while. Morgan had given Mr. Zytztz the brush-off with that phony story about all his mates holding master's certificates. But why hadn't Mr. Zytztz read his mind and known that?

One day Healey asked him, "Don't you still read minds, Mr. Zytztz?"

"Oh, no," Zytztz said pleasantly. "I quit that years ago, because it embarrassed so many persons when they later discovered I could do it...."

Healey sat in on the examination. That board of gray-haired men were grouped around Mr. Zytztz like hawks around a day-old chick. Healey 

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