"Let me take over, Doc," broke in Donnelly. "I'm a space-engineer and that makes me far better qualified to handle this than you are. Why the hell they ever put a psychiatrist on this job in the first place is something I'll never know, if I live to be a hundred and ten. It's a job for an engineer, not a brain washer." "There's a lot of things you'll never know, Donnelly," the gaunt, thin little man sighed wearily. He sat down at the long mahogany table in the Radio Room. With a careless wave of one arm, he swept a pile of papers and magazines to the floor. "Try and get this through your head, Donnelly. There's not too much you can do by yourself for that boy up there. You just don't know how to cope with the psychological intangibles. That's why they have me here--so that we could work together as a team. "Now the sooner you get on that radio and follow my instructions for the pilot the sooner we'll get this over with. Then maybe I can go home and spend a hundred years trying to forget about it. Until then please try and keep your personal opinions to yourself. Please." Donnelly's face flushed a still deeper red. His fists clenched and, as a muscle started to twitch warningly in his cheek, he started to get up. He stopped for a moment--frozen in silence. Then he relaxed and pushed back his chair. With a heavy sigh, he maneuvered his huge bear of a body to its feet. He rumbled something disgustedly in his throat and then spat casually on the floor. "Williams," he thundered. "Get the hell out of here and get us some coffee." He waited a moment until the only witness had left the room and then, with grim determination, he turned to the little psychiatrist seated at the table. "You, Doc," he said coldly and with deliberate malice, "are a dirty, unclean little--" * * * * * Williams, when he eased his slight body through the door a few minutes later, found a suspicious scene. The little doctor, his face flushed and rage-twisted, his effortless and almost contemptuous composure shaken for once, was on his feet. Speechless, he faced the grinning space-engineer who was waving a huge and warning finger in his face. "Easy, Doc," Donnelly roared in a friendly voice. "I might take advantage of it if you keep on giving me a good excuse. Then where would all your psychiatry and your fine overlording manners get you?" "Joe," yelled Williams in explosive sudden fright. "Leave him alone. You're liable to have the Government Police down on us." "Sure, Williams. The police and the newspapers too. They'd just love to have the taxpayers find out what they're doing to those kids out in deep space. What would they call it, Doc? Just an interesting psychological experiment? Is that what it's meant to be, eh, Doc?"