Now all spaceships were equipped with shield generators. They were "generators" by courtesy only; actually they were huge condensers fed by cable lines tied at intervals to the hull plates. The theory was that as the craft plunged into and through the H-layer, these condensers would absorb the excess potential, thus allowing the ship to pass through unharmed. And it worked swell, most of the time. Oh, every year a few ships would get theirs--would blow out in a blue wreath of coruscating flame--but for the most part the trip was safe enough. Except, of course, when a condenser was in bad condition. Which was why I was giving ours a check and double check. Still, I could never rid myself of a queasy moment when we hit that blanket of spark-happy ionization. Particularly when a planet was at aphelion as Earth was now. Because at such times the H-layer was more highly activated than usual. And to tell the truth, I wasn't satisfied with the way my work was going. First I hit my thumb with a monkey-wrench. It didn't hurt the wrench, but the thumb turned pale mauve and throbbed like a sixteen-year-old kid's pulse on his first hayride. Then I lost a brass collar off the hull-brace, and since we didn't carry a reserve stock I had to ask Chief Lester to make me one. By the time that was ready, I'd busted a .44 coil cable lock, and had to jerry-rig a substitute. Oh, it was a headache! But I wasn't the only guy on board the _Aunty_ who was having troubles. Slops raised a howl to high heaven because his stove went on the squeegee. Gunner McCoy stalked into the officer's mess one afternoon demanding what such-and-such so-and-so had stripped the gears of his pet rotor-gun. Sparks burned out three vacuum tubes in one day, breaking contact with all transmitting stations and almost causing us to crack up on a rogue asteroid. Even Cap McNeally was visited by the plague. He came wailing to me, on the bridge, that the refrigeration units in the No. 3 storage bin had broken down. "--and we've lost a whole binfull of _clab_, Brait! Worth at least six thousand credits on Earth. The Corporation will be mad as hell." "That's tough," I said, "but there's nothing we can do about it. It wasn't your fault." He eyed me curiously. "Brait--" he said. "Yes, Cap?" "I've been wondering--do you think there could be anything in what Moran said? About him being a--a--" "Jonah?" I'd been thinking the same thing myself. "I don't know, Skipper. I wouldn't say yes, and I wouldn't say no. But there's no doubt about it, things have been going haywire ever since we picked him up. I'll be glad when he lifts gravs off the _Aunty_." Cap said petulantly, "Of course it's just nonsense. Bad luck doesn't hang around one man like that. It's against the law of averages. Still, I wish you'd sort of keep an eye on him for the next three days, Brait. Till we land on Earth. I've got a notion--"