He made himself as comfortable as possible, and encouraged Koa to talk about his service in the Special Order Squadrons. Koa had plenty to tell, and he talked interestingly. Rip learned that the big Hawaiian had been to every planet in the system, had fought the Venusians on the central desert, and had mined nuclite with SOS One on Mercury. He also found that Koa was one of the 17 pure-blooded Hawaiians left. During the three hours that acceleration kept them from moving around the ship, Rip got a new view of space and of service with the SOS—it was the view of a Planeteer who had spent years around the Solar System. "I’m glad they assigned you to me," Rip told Koa frankly. "This is my first job, and I’ll be pretty green, no matter what it is. I’ll depend on you for a lot of things." To his surprise, Koa thrust out his hand. "Shake, Lieutenant." His grin showed strong white teeth. "You’re the first junior officer I ever met who admitted he didn’t know everything about everything. You can depend on me, sir. I won’t steer you into any meteor swarms." Koa had half turned to shake hands. Suddenly he spun on around, his head banging against the deck. Rip felt a surge of loosened muscles that had been braced against acceleration. At the same time, silence flooded in on them with an almost physical shock. He murmured, "brennschluss," and the murmur was like a trumpet blast. The _Scorpius_ had reached velocity and the nuclear drive had cut out. From terrific acceleration they had dropped to zero. The ship was making high speed, but velocity cannot be felt. For the moment, the men were weightless. A near-by spaceman had heard Rip’s comment. He spoke in an undertone to the man nearest. His voice was pitched low enough so Rip couldn’t object officially, but loud enough to be heard. "Get this, gang. The Planeteer officer knows what brennschluss is. He doesn’t look old enough to know which end his bubble goes on." Rip started to his feet, but Koa’s hand on his arm restrained him. With a violent kick the big sergeant-major shot through the air. His line of flight took him by the spaceman, and somehow their arms got linked. The spaceman was jerked from his post and the two came to a stop against the ceiling. Koa’s voice echoed through the ship. "Sorry. I’m not used to no-weight. Didn’t mean to grab you. Here, I’ll help you back to your post." He whirled the helpless spaceman like a bag of feathers and slung him through the air. The force of the action only flattened Koa against the ceiling, but the hapless spaceman shot forward head first and landed with a clang against the bulkhead. He didn’t hit hard enough to break any bones, but he would carry a bump around on his head for a day or two.