Enid opened her mouth, gasped once, and said in a very weak voice: "John? Here?" "Nowhere else." "But you ... were on ... Pluto--?" McBride thought that one over. How could he explain? He decided not to, and said: "I've been coming back for a long time, Enid. I'm here now--that's all that counts." "Yes, John," said Enid. "She'll be all right now," said Caldwell. "That's what she needed." Another wave of pain crossed Enid's face, and a nurse came with a filled hypo. Caldwell drew McBride out. "Another half hour will see her through," he told John. "You wait here and everything will be all right. I know that now, thank God." Caldwell left McBride to re-enter Enid's room. Steve Hammond and Sandra Drake entered the office. "How is she?" asked Hammond. "Doc says she's going to be all right, now. I've seen her and Doc says she's perking up already." "Good!" said Steve. "Drake, that was a nice piece of navigating. You hit Station 1 right on the nose." Sandra felt a whole library of emotions, mixed together. She smiled a sickly smile and said: "I should have. I've been here before, remember?" Hammond ignored the statement because he thought it sounded too much like bluster. "Drake," he said, "the _Haywire Queen_ is about ready to hop for Terra. Do you feel up to running it in?" "Steve," snapped Sandra Drake, "I'm not going to let any idiot male handle the _Haywire Queen_, and don't you forget it! After all, I'm the only pilot in the solar system that knows how to run her! I'll personally strangle both you and whomever you think you're going to get for that job, understand?" Sandra turned and left. "What in the name of the seven hells has got that dame?" asked McBride. "There are a lot of ways to kill a cat besides choking it to death with cream," said Hammond thoughtfully, "but the latter way is just as effective and sometimes a lot easier. Our she-barracuda has just hit the one thing that she can't fight." "Huh?" "Sure. We gave her credit for doing a good job. Willing, honest credit. No matter how she may profess to despise our opinion, she can't yell 'Liar' at us because that would mean that she thought that the praise meant nothing. She's got to agree with us, or deny that she did anything worthy. And she's been living in a world of her own, trying to prove that she is the stuff. So--get me?" "Uh-huh, I suppose so. How're you set?" "Pretty good. We've swiped all of your spare alphatrons and a couple more gravitic generators, and we'll butter the job up a little so that we won't worry about over-loading the alphatrons. That'll take us an hour or so. How're you doing?" "I dunno. Doc said wait here--and dammit, I'm running out of fingernails, cigarettes, and patience." "Well hang tight. I'll be back from time to time to see how you're getting along--Hi, Doc? What's the good word?" "It's good," sighed Dr. Caldwell. "Honest?" yelled McBride. "Enid's O.K.?"