"Yeah. You did everything by the book, son, except the thing that justified your excursion in the first place. When you came in you merely forgot to seal the specimen box and set its cryogenic cell for deep freeze. Bringing the chips into human temperature range may have destroyed some of the specimen's value. Usually doesn't matter but in this case I wonder--" "Gosh, that's awful! I'd be glad to go out again." "No, you may have stupidly done a smart thing. But you'll really boggle it this time with the ecstasy clouding your mind." "I'm thinking clearly, really I am." "Can't be." "Okay," he said, "test me. Give me some digits to multiply while you punch them on the computer." "All right," Hartley muttered impatiently. "38,373 times 14,621 times 322. Satisfied?" After a few seconds, "1-8-0-6-5-8-6-2-5-8-2-6." Hartley pulled a strand of tape from the computer. "Repeat it slowly." Eyes widening, he followed the response on the tape. "You've got it right!" "Satisfied? Seriously, though, it's nothing when you know the tricks. Old-time non-machine calculating was one of my hobbies when I was a kid." "It isn't 'nothing.' Space ecstasy ruins a man's ability to think straight for hours. Plenty of bodies are still drifting around space because in the early days they neglected the proper safety checks." He stared through the magnifier at the asteroid, its flat face now glittering in sunlight. "Starting to feel the hangover headache?" "No, just fine. Nick, I've never felt this good in my life!" "We'll wait here an hour." * * * * * But after the hour was up Cramer was still grinning. "I'm ready to go out again," he said. Hartley stared at him. "Then it _was_ that white stuff. Man, you've hit on something. There have been a few reports about this kind of untroubled ecstasy reaction but nobody ever spotted that powder. We're going back!" When the asteroid was back in position again they dropped to the surface. Cramer started up but Hartley held him back in his seat. "This time I do pull rank. I'm going out myself." Cramer shrugged. "I'm in too good a mood to offer the slightest protest." "Your mood's why I'm going." He put on his suit and went into the rear chamber. A few minutes later he disappeared outside. "Everything okay?" Cramer radioed. "Sure thing. I'll be right back. This stuff flakes off like mica, easy to handle when you know the angles of the fault lines." A few minutes later he was on board again. "You sure were fast!" Cramer exclaimed. "Get the comp-decomp going and don't chew so much fat."