Neal Cloud was not the world’s best pilot. Nevertheless, by dint of light and somewhat unorthodox use of what few jets he had left, he did land her free. A very good landing, considering—he almost hit the observatory’s field, which was only one mile square—and having landed her, he inerted her. But, as has been intimated, his brain wasn’t working quite so good; he had held his ship inertialess for quite a few seconds longer than he thought, and he did not even think of the terrific buffetings she had taken. As a result of these things, however, her intrinsic velocity did not match, anywhere nearly, that of the ground upon which she lay. Thus, when Cloud cut his Bergenholm, restoring thereby to the flitter the absolute velocity and the inertia she had before going free, there resulted a distinctly anticlimactic crash. There was a last terrific bump as the motionless vessel collided with the equally motionless ground; and “Storm” Cloud, Vortex Blaster, went out like the proverbial light. Help came, of course; on the double. Cloud was unconscious and the flitter’s port could not be opened from the outside, but those were not insuperable obstacles. A plate, already loose, was torn away; the pilot was unclamped and rushed to Base Hospital in the “meat-crate” standing by. Later, in a private office of that hospital, the head of the Vortex Control Laboratory sat and waited—not patiently. “How is he, Lacy?” he demanded, as the surgeon-marshal entered the room. “He’s going to live?” “Oh, yes, Phil—definitely yes,” Lacy replied, briskly. “A very good skeleton; very good indeed. His screens stopped all the really bad radiation, so the damage will yield quite readily to treatment. He doesn’t really need the Phillips we gave him—for the replacement of damaged parts, you know—except for a few torn muscles and so on.” “But he was pretty badly smashed up—I helped take him out, you know—how about that arm and leg? He was a mess.” “Merely simple fractures—entirely negligible.” Lacy waved aside with an airy gesture such minor ills as broken bones. “He’ll be out in a couple of weeks.” “How soon can I see him? Business can wait, but there’s a personal matter that can’t.” “I know what you mean.” Lacy pursed his lips. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t allow it, but you see him now. Not too long, though, Phil; he’s weak. Ten minutes at most.” “QX. Thanks.” A nurse led the visiting Lensman to Cloud’s bedside. “Hi, stupe!” he boomed, cheerfully. “‘Stupe’ being short for ‘stupendous’, this time.” “Ho, chief. Glad to see somebody. Sit down.” “You’re the most-wanted man in the galaxy, not excepting Kimball Kinnison. Here’s a spool of tape, which you can look at as soon as Lacy will let you have a scanner. It’s only the first one. As soon as any planet finds out that we’ve got a sure-enough-vortex-blower-outer who can really call his shots—and _that_ news gets around mighty fast—it sends in a double-urgent, Class A Prime demand for you.