Mr. Lancelot Slops had pulled a banquet out of the hat! We had fried chicken with cream gravy, hot biscuits, candied yams, a side dish of stewed _clab_, Creole style, raisin pie, and the best damn coffee ever served on the wallowing old _Saturn_. What the other men of the crew thought, I have no idea. They didn't say. Every man-jack of 'em was so busy shoveling grub into his puss that the conversation was dead as a Martian herring. But after I'd bulged my belt to the last notch with fried pullet, I waddled into the galley and confronted Mr. Biggs. "Biggs," I said accusingly, "you've been holding out on us! Why didn't you tell us before you could cook a meal like that?" He shuffled his feet sheepishly. He said, "Was it all right, Sparks?" "All right? It was terrific! I haven't had such a feed since I was a kid." He looked relieved. "I'm glad. Because, you see, that was the first meal I ever cooked." "It was the first--_what!_" "Mmm-hmm! But there were lots of cook books here in the galley. And I figured so long as I had to do it, I might as well do it right--" He grinned at me shyly. Once in a while I wondered, briefly, whether any of us understood this strange, lanky genius, Lancelot Biggs. This was one of the times. "I--I found it rather interesting, Sparks, to tell you the truth. It is, just as I told Cap Hanson, just a matter of elementary chemistry. The pots and pans are the test-tubes; the stove is a huge Bunsen burner." I said admiringly, "I'll hand you one thing, Mr. Biggs. You believe in sticking to theories, don't you?" "But of course. 'Get the theory first'; that's the big secret of success in any undertaking." He looked pleased and a little excited, too. "We're going to have a good trip home, Sparks. There's plenty of food here to experiment with. And in the holds--" It was just then that I caught my number being buzzed on the intercommunicating audio. I cut through and yelled, "Sparks speaking. What's up?" "Sparks?" It was my relief man calling from the radio room. "You'd better come up here on the double. A message from Sun City, and I think it's bad news." "Right with you," I hollered. I snapped a brief "See you later!" to Biggs and raced up the Jacob's ladder to the turret. My relief man was there, also Cap Hanson and the second-in-command, Lt. Todd. All three of them looked a bit grim and a bit glum and quite a bit apprehensive. My relief shoved a wire flimsy into my hand. It was a cipher message from Sun City spaceport. I knew the code as well as I know English and Universal, so I read it aloud. "HANSON COMMANDER IPS SATURN EN ROUTE VENUS-EARTH. TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY FOR CONVOY. PIRATE HAKE REPORTED ON COORDINATES THREE FIFTEEN PLUS NINE OH NINE YOUR TRAJECTORY." It was signed, "Allonby, Comm. S.S.C.B." I stared at Cap Hanson, wondering if my face were as queasy as my tummy felt. I said, "Hake! Runt Hake!" Hanson said, "Yes, but that's not the worst of it, Sparks. Tell him, Mr. Todd."