A furious Ray Cornell interrupted their third kiss. He strode through a gap in the hedge-wall and pulled Waters from her roughly and said, "They _told_ me I'd find you two out here." "What right have you to interfere?" countered Waters. "_This!_" snapped Ray, throwing a clumsy punch at his rival, who threw one back in return. Lynne let out a gasp of alarm and tried to move between them but was brushed rudely to the ground. So hard did she land that for a moment the world seemed to swim. She shook her head to clear it, felt the alarm gongs she had come to know preceded a return of her headache. Then she saw a third taller male figure take Ray in one hand, Alan in the other and pull them apart by the collars of their bolo packets as if they were a couple of dogs squabbling over a bone. "You men are supposed to work together," he said quietly. Then, his voice rising a half-tone and increasing in force, "Why in _farb_ don't you?" With which he cracked their heads together with stunning force, tossed them to the turf like a pair of sacks and came over to help Lynne gently to her feet. She collapsed into his arms, for the first time let his lips seek hers, responded to them. Later--how much later she didn't know, for during that day and evening she seemed destined to lose large chunks of time--she looked up at him, reveling in his controlled strength and leanness. "Rolf," she said, "I'm sorry--that was my fault." "You'd have been less than a woman if you hadn't done something like it to put me in my place," he whispered. "But it seems so cheap now," she said. "And my head...." "It wasn't cheap because you didn't know," he told her. "As for your head, you need a change. You're going to get one. You're leaving with me for Mars tonight." "But, Rolf--" she began. "Come on, honey," he told her. "It's all arranged. We've only got a couple of hours to make the ship." She walked back to Mother Weedon's with his arm around her, stumbling a little from time to time like a blind woman. She was going to Mars and the mere idea scared her almost to death. IV Lynne, who had been largely brought up on stories of pioneer space-flights in which the passengers had to endure tremendous initial acceleration, was pleasantly surprised by the takeoff. She probably would have known better had her conditioning and training not geared her to such complete uninterest in anything beyond the atmosphere that she seldom thought of the stars except as pretty lights in the sky. She did have to strap herself to her bunk before the immense silver teardrop rose slowly upward toward space--but as the stewardess explained in routine tones the strap was a mere precaution against a possible lurch caused by brief failure of one of the launching jets. And within five minutes after takeoff a tiny sign lit up over the cabin door that read UNFASTEN BELTS--SMOKING PERMITTED.