Reynard was a decent enough skipper. He wasn't much of a disciplinarian, but the boat only carried a crew of twenty, so that was no problem. As an astrogator, he had quite a reputation, and he'd been out to Venus before on one of the ships that lugged the settlers and scientific personnel out there. There wasn't much fanfare when the time came for our departure. Ships were lifting every day for Mars just then, and the departure of one for Venus didn't seem important. Before we left though, a Holcomb Foundation man came aboard and spoke to us about the importance of our trip. He said that if we didn't bring back the weather-plant in good shape, things might turn nasty on Earth. It would be another year and a half before Venus and Earth came into conjunction again, and by that time it might be too late for the thousands who were going hungry back home. It gave us a sense of responsibility, all right. And it particularly had an effect on Bat. * * * * * We lifted from Mare Imbrium on 11/9/02 Earth Date. I recall that I gave her 2G, easing her up to 6G and holding that acceleration for sixty hours. By that time our speed in MPH wouldn't have made sense. I revelled in the power under my hands, and the feeling that I could actually waste an erg or two without having to worry myself bald about landing. The _Eagle_ carried fifty pounds of ingot thorium as fuel, and with our new atomics, that would have taken us to Centaurus, if we'd had the time. It was wonderful to be able to keep the boat under a steady 1G all the way to turn-over instead of having to endure the endless nausea of free-fall. Even seasoned spacemen never got used to free-fall, and atomics eliminated it, thank God! The sunward flight was something to remember for sheer beauty. Earth and Luna faded astern until they were just a bright point of light. The sun blazed like a ball of white fire ahead of us, and Venus grew brighter and brighter against the breath-taking backdrop of the Milky Way. It was a gorgeous sight--but frightening, too. I had the feeling that I was terribly exposed, as though I were standing balanced atop the spire of the Holcomb Tower, five hundred stories above the teeming streets of New York. Agoraphobia, I think the psychs call it. The others felt it too. In fact one of the jetmen went slightly off his rocker and had to be jugged. But most of the men came through the first fear of deep space well enough, and as an astrogator Captain Reynard was strictly one hundred per cent. I didn't see much of Bat on the trip, since he was down in the heavily sheathed tuberoom with his "black-gang." But I could tell whenever he was on watch, because if I turned the interphone on without warning, I could almost invariably hear his beery baritone singing the praises of: "That Lulu! Belle of ol' Foy City Who wears two hammocks...." Bat was something of a poet, in his lighter moments--though most of his stuff was lamentably unprintable.