"A-okay, Dr. Spartan!" I announced into my helmet microphone. "The line's fast. I'll stand by to assist you folks aboard."

"Roger!" Spartan's voice echoed in my ears.

They came one by one, hand over hand, with safety hasps fastened over the wire. First Morrie, then Gail, then Axel, Joel and Dr. Spartan, playing his role of captain to the hilt, being the last to leave the ship.

I pulled them into the locks. There had been a little danger from meteors, of course, but the experts had figured that the chance of a meteor large enough to penetrate a spacesuit hitting an individual was one in 241 years. So far the estimate had been holding up. The nineteen men who built the Jehad had worked six years in space—a total of 114 man years. We had yet to experience a meteor casualty.

None of my companions seemed afraid. All were a little glad to be aboard the Jehad.

As Spartan came into the locks, he unfastened the wire line that held us to the Saturn capsule. Then he closed the door. He turned a valve, filling the chamber with air, and after a few seconds he opened the inside locks and we all walked into the large, roomy interior of the little planet of our own.

 Chapter 4

You could call those five days aboard the Jehad a honeymoon, although the usual definition did not apply to Mr. and Mrs. William Drake. Not only had I promised to keep the marriage on a purely platonic level, but Gail, by her actions and formality, gave me to understand that I was not expected to even go through the motions of playing the newlywed husband.

However, it was a happy time for all of us, and I include Dr. Spartan, even though he might never again be described as being in sympathetic rapport with the rest of us.

As soon as we had cut loose from the capsule and filled the plasma craft with air, we got the artificial gravity in operation by starting some auxiliary rockets which made the ship rotate slowly. The gravity was only ten per cent, but it was sufficient to keep us from floating around the room. We took off our spacesuits and laughed uproariously at our costumes—shorts, T-shirts and lightweight sandals which had magnetic strips in the soles to assist the artificial gravity in holding us to the floor.

Axel relayed our messages back to the earth, telling of our safe arrival, and Dr. Spartan and 

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