Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. "_Now!_" He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug _Scylla_ found them. The three ships ... _Atropos_, _Lachesis_, and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and _Aphrodite's_ tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... * * * * * The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the _Ganymede_ back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is _no_. Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same. End of Project Gutenberg's Jinx Ship to the Rescue, by Alfred Coppel