Douglas sank down into the swivel until his smooth, clean-shaven chin almost rested on the desk top. The spanking new _Lucifer_, cargoing a bin full of Orion's precious powdered platinum, was Chris Douglas's first real deep-galactic command--after years of school theorizing and practical activity as everything from a galley-knave to a blast-wiper. He loved his new ship; but already his first voyage under his own ticket threatened to be his last! Starways' hard-boiled employee policy might well put him on a muck-ridden asteroid run after this, or ground him altogether. Chris Douglas groaned and ran a limp hand over his moist face. He hadn't felt more sheerly miserable since he was turned down by the lady of his choice when he was fifteen. The lady, to be sure, was almost twice his age then; but even so her answer still rankled. She was his schoolmarm, and she had made it painfully clear that under no circumstances would she consider becoming engaged to a fat little appleknocker like Christopher Douglas. Her name was Lucy; and it still gave him a pang to recall her cool gray eyes and her-- "Beg pardon, Cap'n. Are yuh busy?" Douglas looked up with a start. A big face--quite different from the beautiful vision in his mind--was framed in the aperture formed by the partly open cabin door. It was a thoroughly, almost enjoyably, ugly face, that looked as if it had been kneaded by a crazy baker. It possessed just about the color and consistency of limp dough. Captain Douglas straightened slowly in his seat as he gazed on it. "Skelly!" He said ominously, "come in!" Bo'sun Tug Skelly came in cautiously, as if he were afraid of wrecking the daintily appointed cabin by one awkward movement of his great, brawny frame. He held his cap very respectfully in one gnarled hand; but his huge face wore what Douglas thought was an altogether out-of-place grin. He looked like an overgrown urchin who is caught swiping pies but is unrepentant because of a full stomach. "I suppose," Captain Douglas said icily when the big bo'sun stood before his desk, "that you know what your shenanigans in Orion has cost, Skelly!" "Yessir," Tug grinned unblushingly, "but don't let that bother yuh too much, Cap'n. Shux, so long's we got rid o' that stowaway everything'll be shipshape, never fear." "Listen, Skelly," Captain Douglas rose holding the shreds of his dignity around him with a shaking hand, "are you aware that we could have cargoed that Orionian from here to Betelgeuse and back for what the lost day is going to cost?" Tug nodded brightly. He was obviously not too impressed by his young superior's analogy. "Sure, Cap'n," he said easily, "but we wouldn't have got very far with him. I mean we'd've had an accident o' some kind. Maybe a rocket tube woulda slipped its moorings; maybe the gravs woulda gone dead without no reason. But something woulda happened--that's the godshonest truth."