"Oh no he can't. When this comes off it stays off." "Why Tom! Are you afraid of a little tape?" "You bet I am. Give me a ray-burn any day." "All right then." She picked up my shirt and began helping me into it. "But if you grow up lopsided or chicken-breasted, don't blame me!" I didn't pay any attention. I tried my arms again, and they reached out all right. It was a good job of taping. She pushed me away and stood up. "Careful of your ribs, mister," she warned. "Come on, you don't belong in here anyway--this is the women's side." I hunched myself into my jacket and followed her through the door and down a short passage which led into a sort of utility room in the midsection of the blister. One end was taken up with shelves and cases of food and other supplies, a diatherm cooker, distillation unit, mess table and the like; at the other, to the sides of the air lock, were two or three desks with books and papers. One of the desks held a periscreen which reflected the star-speckled black of space and a small bright ball which was the distant sun. A row of thick glass portholes at each end of the room let in a fair amount of light. * * * * * Out in the center of the floor were several chairs which looked almost comfortable, and a large table with a ping-pong net on it. The thought of trying to predict the behavior of a ping-pong ball under gravity of point-o-two or thereabouts made me dizzy again. I sat down in the easiest-looking chair and Betty took a seat opposite me. The solemn look was on her face again. "I should have mentioned it before," she apologized, "but I am glad to see you, Tom. And amazed, of course. What happened to your job at Translunar?" "Translunar doesn't like me any more. I took the prize money to fit out the Aspera and sneered at the job." "Oh, Tom!" I liked the way she said it this time. "Then you are free-lancing?" "Free is the word for it. The list they put me on is black as the night side of Pluto. No outfit in space would hire me for a swamper after this. And you can't space-rat without a ship to rat in. As a matter of fact, I have a great future behind me. All because I had a great idea." "What was the idea, Tom? I know you didn't come all the way out here just to talk to me." "Well, it would have been worth it, but that wasn't it. I was on my way to Jupiter to prove once and for all that there isn't any Warp and that there are pirates on Callisto. Then I broke down a few hours out of Mars, with too much velocity to get back on the chemicals. After a while you came along, and I saw the camp, and managed to set her down. I didn't know this was your rock." "You have the craziest ideas, Tom!" "All right, let it go. I'm done with crazy ideas. The wildest one I have at the moment is to talk your uncle into thinking that I can earn my keep here and a passage back to Earth." "Good--and I'll talk him into not sending you back with the Patrol." "The Patrol?"