in the after hold. A gap as big as a railway locomotive showed in her hull. Things had been shaken up pretty badly. The pumping system was severely damaged and the oxygen pipes destroyed, controls beaten up, audio and video screens dead, but the atomic engines, for some reason, were not injured.

"Well, Mr. Zytztz, it can be done," Healey said after an inspection. "It can be fixed up, and it'll be your ship, but do you think you fellows can do it? You're not very handy at things like that? Want me to send you some help?"

"No," Mr. Zytztz said decisively. Healey knew what he was thinking. If they took an Earth-man with them, the Earth-man would have an equal share in the salvage, and Mr. Zytztz wanted the ship for him and his race alone.

Healey said, "Okay, good luck," and went on back to the Philipuster, but he was very thoughtful.

The senator asked several times on the way to Jupiter for an audience, but Healey had no intention of explaining why they had stopped at the height of trajectory, and so he evaded him.

They made their call at Jove and delivered three hundred passengers, mostly employees of Atompowerinc to work in the americium mines, and a couple of hundred thousand tons of food and supplies, and took on a load of passengers going back to Earth for a rest. Three months' work on Jupiter with its high gravity and artificial air required a man to rest three months on Earth before he could go back.

The Philipuster picked up nearly a hundred tons of pure americium and some plutonium which had been produced as a by-product.

Healey did not know what they would do with all the americium because they claimed the new atomic engines attained ninety per cent efficiency from atomic fission, and Healey knew that they could fly the Philipuster to Jupiter and back on no more americium than a strong man could carry on his back.

On the way to Earth Captain Browne said, "Do you suppose we might go anywhere near the Phoebus, sir?"

"We ought to," Healey growled. "You've been resetting the course every night to try to meet it."

Captain Browne turned a delicate shade of pea-green. "Sorry, sir," he said.

"Skip it. Just be sure you don't lose them."

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