"I'm fed up with you, Mars!" All control over his temper was gone now and the younger man gave full vent to his anger. His powerful body fairly bristled in his rage and in spite of himself Mars was forced to cringe beneath the assailing roars that followed. "You may be twenty years older than I am; you may have been one of the pioneers in space travel; you may still be a good man if you could forget that the whole world didn't plot that accident that left you with a bad leg--but you're still taking orders from me. We have some good men in this department, and you can either keep your mouth shut and work with us or you can get out. Interstellar drive isn't the only solution to space travel and the answer to the problem is going to come from this laboratory. Now take your choice!" Mars glared at Bronsen and seethed inwardly but swung back to his work table. His right leg twitched convulsively, forcing him into a stumbling limp and he silently cursed the fate that had brought him to such a lowly existance. Him! Joc Kenton! Member of the first expedition to land on Mars and successfully return to Earth. And what was he now? Just a second rate design consultant working in a laboratory on the moon. His water blue eyes clouded in his flood of self pity. How beautiful it had been out there ... all blackness, all majesty, the throbbing power of the rockets, the thrill of unknown adventures in the void. His rickety old heart beat faster with remembering. The scorching desolateness of Mars was something he would never forget. Even now he could see the miles of heat-drenched land, the thick red powder that covered the planet's crust, the stretching reaches of nothing but a barren, dead world. And then--the accident. Sure, it was just an accident. How could he know that the port lid was going to break its magnetic field and slam down upon him? It had though, and he had returned an honored man, praised for his self-sacrificing adventure, then pitied because he would spend the rest of his life a crippled man. He twisted his thin, blue-veined hands together, those hands that had piloted a glittering rocket through space, those hands that had sifted through the sands of an alien world, those hands that now were white and fragile, working over drawings and plans for other ships. Gone were the dreams, and with their going came the bitterness. He felt his anger melting in his own self pity, decided not to brush away the tears that gathered in his eyes and turned to his board, staring at it through blurred vision.