So I disconnected one of the power leads and removed three parts. A curved metal bar, a small condenser, and the shield of one of the intricate little tubes. I went back to sleep thinking Mike would wake me to get the parts and we could write notes back and forth to settle the matter, forgetting entirely how stubborn he could be. It was a dirty trick, but I'm glad now I did it. It helped save Earth. * * * * * Before I was fully awake I knew something was really wrong. Mike was shaking me roughly and there was a wild gleam in his eyes. A glance showed me he'd pulled off Bill's sleep mask too. "---- ---- ----!" Mike yelled, but of course I couldn't hear him. In those Wilson-drive spaceships it was utterly impossible to talk between blast-off and landing. Then he shoved a pad under my nose. "MARTIANS TAKING OVER!!! EARTH IN DEADLY PERIL!!!" he had written. Little slimy bugs with ice-cold, prickly feet marched up and down my spine. Every man has his private, personal phobia, something that throws him into an irrational panic, and mine has always been lunatics. Ever since I can remember I've had a morbid fear of mental disorders, which is why the Malignant Inertia Complex had had me so thoroughly frightened. And now I knew the supersonics had driven Mike space-batty. I didn't for a moment believe what he had written. I'd been to Mars before, seen Marties in their home environment, slow-moving and lethargic, entirely without initiative, completely unwarlike. "DISCOVERED PLOT VIA HUSTIC," Mike scribbled. The bugs on my spine quit parading and started running. I grabbed the pad. "IMPOSSIBLE," I wrote. "HUSTIC NOT WORKING. NO GOOD. DISCONNECTED." Mike dived across the cabin in the light gravity, hauled himself up neatly on a handgrip and raised the cover of the selector unit. Then he thumbed his nose at me. Bill and I took a good look. That stubborn, crazy Irishman had made a new bar to replace the one I'd hidden and cut down an empty food can as a tube shield. "GOT TO TURN BACK, WARN EARTH," Mike wrote. "THE CULTURAL--" Bill and I looked at each other. Swinging a ship in mid-transit can be done, but it's hardly safe or good practice. Mike was no puny infant, and we knew we had to get him before he became really violent. Mike read our faces and started to draw back, but he was too late. Bill pinioned his arms in a bear hug and I slipped a sleep mask over his face. He struggled and tried to hold his breath, but the gas got him at last and he went limp. Sadly we loaded him into the pneumatic cushions and placed the air-release valve out of his reach. Few victims of space-battiness ever recovered, and both of us were feeling pretty sick. Mike had been space-hopping with us for three years, and despite his screwballisms we liked the big lug. And we knew Polly was going to take it awfully hard. * * * * *