I got up and stretched my muscles, and the others began doing the same. It takes time to get used to a full gee again after spending time in the Belt. Even in a flitterboat, you're in a bucket seat, lying on your back; you can't do any walking around in a flitterboat. The change in Ellsworth Felder was remarkable. All that chubbiness that had ballooned out under the low gravity of Ceres and made him look like the Cheerful Cherub was pulled into sagging folds under the pull of the ship's acceleration. It made him look fifteen years older. None of the others seemed to be bothered much. Felder kept his good humor, though. He didn't seem to know that there'd been any change in his appearance. He rubbed his hands together and said: "I, for one, always get hungry when the gravity goes up. May I suggest an early lunch?" Nobody disagreed with him. * * * * * We settled into a routine pretty quickly. There wasn't much to do, since McGuire was taking care of the jobs that require a crew on an ordinary ship. To avoid boredom, we'd brought books and a few decks of cards and various other time-wasters. Several times, McGuire had to change course slightly because of rocks in his path, and Brentwood would always glance at his instruments when that happened, watching the squiggles that indicated McGuire's replotting. [Illustration] Those occasional rocks were our reason for waiting before we tried any fancy tricks with McGuire. We wanted to get out into the relatively clear space between Mars and the Belt. I beat Videnski out of a ten-spot at gin rummy, which, oddly enough, seemed to raise his respect for me. Vivian Deveraux talked with Brentwood for a while, then settled down to reading a book entitled "Some Applications of Discontinuity in Pattern Theory." Felder munched apples and read a magazine. We ate another meal amid pleasant chatter, and I went into one of the two bedrooms for a nap. Miss Devereaux had one of the bedrooms all to herself. We men had drawn straws, and Felder and I had ended up with the bedroom while Videnski and Brentwood got the couches in the lounge. I dozed off, but it was only a light doze. If there were an emergency, I would be the only one who could order McGuire around, and I wanted to be ready to wake up at a moment's notice. I'd been snoozing for half an hour or so when I heard the noise that woke me up. I'd been lying with my face to the wall, and, for a moment, I couldn't figure out what had awakened me. Then I heard it again. Just the faintest sound of a footstep near the bunk. I moved just in time. I sat up and turned to see Irwin Brentwood standing near me, holding a hypospray gun in one hand. I jumped him, knocking the gun aside, but his hand didn't lose his grip on it as we went down in a tangle.