"I can't tell anyone official, Sheila. I'd have my head handed to me. But I've got to think and I've got to tell someone. I'll go crazy, just knowing and not doing anything." "It's important, isn't it?" * * * * * Larry downed another drink quickly. It was his fourth and Sheila had never seen him take more than three or four in the course of a whole evening. "You're damned right it's important." Larry leaned forward across the postage-stamp table. A liquor-haze clouded his eyes as he said: "It's so important that unless someone does something about it, we'll all be dead inside of twenty-four hours. Only trouble is, there isn't anything anyone can do about it." "Larry--you're a little drunk." "I know it. I know I am. I want to be a lot drunker. What the hell can a guy do?" "What do you know, Larry? What have you heard?" "I know they have the President of the Galactic Federation aboard this ship and that he ought to be told the truth." "No. I mean--" "They sent out an SOS, kid. Controls are locked. Lifeboats don't have enough power to get us out of the sun's gravitational pull. We're all going to roast, I tell you!" Sheila felt her heart throb wildly. Even though he was well on the way to being thoroughly drunk, Larry was telling the truth. Instinctively, she knew that--was certain of it. "What are you going to do?" she said. He shrugged. "I guess because I can't do a damned thing I'm going to get good and drunk. That's what I'm going to do. Or maybe--who the hell knows?--maybe in one minute I'm going to jump up on this table and tell everyone what I overheard. Maybe I ought to do that, huh?" "Larry, Larry--if it's as bad as you say, maybe you ought to think before you do anything." "Who am I to think? I'm one of the muscle men. That's what they pay me for, isn't it?" "Larry. You don't have to shout." "Well, isn't it?" "If you don't calm down I'll have to leave." "You can sit still. You can park here all night. _I'm_ leaving." "What are you going to do?" "Oh ... that." Larry got up from the table. He looked suddenly green and Sheila thought it was because he had too much to drink. "You don't have to worry about that, Sheila. Not now you don't. I all of a sudden don't feel so good. Headache. Man, I never felt anything like it. Better go to my cabin and lie down. Maybe I'll wake up and find out all this was a dream, huh?" "Do you need any help?" Sheila demanded, real concern in her voice. "No. 'Sall right. Man, this headache really snuck up on me. Pow! Without any warning." "Let me help you." "No. Just leave me alone, will you?" Larry staggered off across the crowded dance floor. He drew angry glances and muttered comments as he disturbed the dancers waltzing to Carlotti's _Danube in Space_. Why don't you admit it, Grange, Larry thought as he staggered through the companionway toward his cabin. That's what you always wanted, isn't it--a place of importance? A place in the sun, they call it.