"Yeah. I've been looking for her--and I'm as big a dope as you. I wanted to offer her the chance to pilot the _Haywire Queen_ out there. I couldn't find her in the inner system and so I was going to take a squint at Pluto. I stopped off to ask if you'd care to take the run with me." "You know I would." "Well, that takes care of both answers. Drake is on her way--shucks, she's there already--and the second part is you--and you want to go." "I'll ask Enid," said McBride. "Come on, we'll go right down and see her now." * * * * * Enid McBride smiled. "His asking me is a matter of form," she told Hammond. "Naturally he'll go. I think it will be swell for him to go. He needs a vacation anyway." "But--" "No buts. You'll go and like it. I wouldn't want you to miss anything like this for the world." "How about you?" Enid smiled again. "I'm no pioneer type, John. You know that. I'd be out of place--and what would John Junior do? Oh, we could leave him with Anna, if I wanted to go, but somehow this is as far as I care to get from home--my folk's home, I mean. It's funny how after seven years a woman still speaks of her parents' home as her home in spite of the fact that she has a home and family of her own." "What'll you do?" "I'm going to take this opportunity to go home--my parents' home, I mean. You see, Steve, Dad and John talk different languages. Dad is a metal broker on Pluto. The only reason why he tolerated John at all was because John's lens kept Dad in business. Dad wouldn't know a cupralum pig from an acceleration cushion, though he deals in a million tons of the stuff every year. It's all on paper. On the other hand, John wouldn't know how to sell the stuff, but he sure can make it do tricks. So they sit and glare at one another and each one wonders how the other makes a living. Dad's money is obvious, and John's success is equally well-known, but how and why are lost on each other. "So I keep 'em as far apart as I can." "I get it," smiled Hammond. "Pretty bad, hey?" Enid laughed, "This ring is pure iridium. Dad was horrified because he first thought that iridium was radioactive like radium and that I'd get burned or worse. Then he found out it wasn't--and offered to buy a real, honest-to-goodness platinum ring if John couldn't afford it. Then he discovered that iridium is so rare that they do not have a market price per gram and that was all right, but he also confused it with iodine, and worried about its chemical action on my hand. Poor Dad still is not sure about it, so he has to inspect it every time he sees it to ascertain whether or not it is turning green, or my finger is falling off, or that it hasn't sublimed and disappeared. You can't detect the wearing, so Dad then accuses John of either buying a new one every time I come home or making me keep it in a safe while I'm here."