Fortunately, atomic drives are outdated now. The new warships are the regular thing. Atomics didn't last long, and in a way it's a good thing. At least no crew will ever have to go through what mine went through, and no ship turn into a fey thing like Clem did. The strange thing about it is that I cared for that ship. I cared for her from the first moment I saw her lying somnolently among the rusting hulks in the graveyard near Canalopolis. Remember, this was a long time ago. Even then, the old timer of the Mojave yards must have been fifteen years dead and gone. Canalopolis was a desert outpost on the edge of Syrtis Major cowering under the lash of the everlasting sandstorms, but just then it was a boomtown. A lot of the vital force had drained away from the urge to colonize when Mars and Venus had turned out to be so inhospitable. That's why there were old ships and to spare in the Canalopolis yards. It looked as though the outward flood of humanity had reached its limit. The Asteroid Belt made deep space too dangerous to reach for mere colonization. A catalyst was needed. It was supplied when Carvel's exploratory crew reached Europa and found gold. Gold! In the same way that the cry from Sutter's Mill had brought a flood of new life out to the wilderness that was California centuries back, so Carvel's news brought men out from Terra to seek their fortunes in the darkness of deep space ... on that tiny, unknown worldlet spinning close to the bosom of mighty Jupiter. The ink on my Master's ticket was barely dry when I jumped the Centurion as she dropped gravs at Canalopolis. I was set for a ship of my own. With a few carefully hoarded dollars in my overalls and a lot of brass I figured that I could get me a command. A few trips through the Belt would put me in velvet. Of course, I knew it was dangerous and uncharted, but the canal city was full of grizzled sourdoughs and eager youngsters all willing to pay plenty for transport to Europa. I figured I couldn't miss. That's where the R. S. Clementine came in. I bought her with a few dollars cash and a whole lot of credit. During those hectic days a man with a space pilot's license and a Master's rating could just about write his own ticket. I signed a note for fifty thousand and took possession of the ship. The fueling took five thousand ... inerted plutonium came high on Mars, and the victualling took another two thousand. It didn't bother me. Ink and paper were cheap enough. Then I spent two days rounding up a crew on a share and share alike basis, and another day lining up fifty passengers at two thousand a head. I was in business. My Second Officer was a grizzled old rum-dum called Swanson. He was a laconic old soul who loved spacing only a jot better than he loved Martian alky. But he was a sharp man for the firing consoles; I never knew a better one.