"Yes, sir. He said he couldn't stand himself after the little death. He's running a mission in Venusport now." Gavin cracked his knuckles thoughtfully. His gaunt freckled face was sober. He didn't question the pair further, but set to examining the machinery with minute care. He found nothing until he reached the aft bulkhead. Then his pale blue eyes fell on a faint rectangular line in the rigid steel. A door. But there were neither knobs nor bolts nor any visible means of opening it. "Look here, Fitz," he called the master mechanic to his side, pointed out the door. "Where does this lead?" Fitz scratched his head. "I don't know. Never noticed it before." The Venusian girl had seen it, but had no more idea than Fitz what lay beyond. Gavin spent most of his four-hour watch trying to ascertain the secret of its mechanism. He was still sweating over it profusely when Sally Wilde, the second assistant-engineer, arrived in her wheel chair to relieve him. The second was a tall, gray-eyed blonde, handsome after a rangy fashion. One of her long legs was propped straight ahead of her in a plastic cast. She was wheeled down by the relieving watch and shook hands with Gavin like a man. "I've been curious about what you were like," she informed him with a roguish smile. She wore a green wrapper thrown about her indifferently, and that was all. She caught the direction of his eye. "Damned nuisance to dress with this lump of plastic on my leg." She was, Gavin perceived, the arch type of emancipated female whom he detested so heartily. He mumbled something about being glad she was doing so nicely. "The last third," she explained, "was a disappointment. But you're a pleasant surprise, Mr. Murdock. So virile." She thumped the transparent plastic cast. "When I get rid of this we'll do something about it." Gavin fled up the ladder. He came out on the observation deck and recognized Nadia in her gray coveralls seated in a deck chair and staring upward at the stars. They floated in the void like gems on black velvet. He came up behind her saying, "Some day man will conquer outer space as he has the planetary system." Nadia sat up, her black eyes provoked. "What are you? A fish? After all I'm supposed to have a passion for you. Didn't I say back in Trev's office that we had a lot to talk over, Mr. Gavin Murdock, ex-chief engineer of the Europa?" Gavin pulled up a deck chair. His blue eyes wary, he asked in a flat voice, "Why did you vouch for me? You never worked for Transplanet. Why did you lie?" "No," she replied slowly. "No, I never was third mate aboard any of Transplanet's ships. But I wasn't lying. I did know you." She laughed teasingly. "And I did have a crush on you, Mr. Gavin Murdock, ex-first assistant-engineer of Tri-World's ship, the Saturn!" Gavin controlled an inclination to jump. His face hardened. It was true he had been first assistant-engineer of the Saturn. He had left her to join the T.I.S.