Then blackness, soft, warm and impenetrable.... No, not impenetrable. For there was a light in my eyes, and my head was no longer swimming, and I was lying on something comfortable, and a friendly voice was saying, "Here you are, Buster. Drink this!" So why look a gift drink in the bottle? I drank it, and immediately felt warmer inside. And more confident, too. Until I lifted my head and looked about me. Then I let loose a howl that stretched from here to there, with reverberations. "Great galloping saints, where am I? No, don't say it! Let me guess. World's Fair?" My young companion looked puzzled. He was a decent-looking chap, except for that wild costume he was wearing. A sort of uniform, but it reminded me painfully of a Buck Rogers serial. Loose tunic and slacks, sky-blue, with a Sam Browne belt and a gun holster into which was jammed a weird-appearing weapon, all knobs and studs and buttons. "How?" he said. I said, "My--my friends? Where are they?" "They're up and around. You're the only fader." He grinned. "You must be allergic to electricity, huh?" I was still staring about me. The room was a humdinger. All metal and plastic and glass; a small cubicle about six by ten, with a single bunk (that on which I now sat, poised for flight) a desk, chair, porthole-- Porthole! "So that's it!" I yipped. "Shanghaied!" * * * * * I made a dive for the porthole, pressed my nose to it, hoping that across the bounding blue I might see at least one faint ribbon of good old terra firma. But there was no land. There was no bounding blue. There weren't even any clouds or sky! There was--just gray. Wan, dismal gray that seemed to stretch into infinity! It was plain that I needed either one less drink or one more. I settled for the latter. A long, straight one. It snapped me hurriedly out of my speechlessness. "Not that it's any of my business," I said, "but it looks to me like there's nothing outside that porthole but a lot of gray emptiness." My companion nodded dolefully. "Yeah," he said, "I know. I've looked--and looked." "Where I come from, space usually has things stuffed inside it. So apparently I'm not there. Which being the case, would you mind telling me where the hell I _am_?" I demanded. He shook his head. "That's just it, Buster. We don't know." "You," I told him, "are a big help. Pass the bottle. Do you happen to know your own name?" "Yeah," he said. "Mud. It used to be Bert Donovan. I'm the radio operator aboard this ship." "Ship?" He was beginning to talk sense now. "Lugger, I should say. This is the _Saturn_, friend. IPS freight lugger, operating on the Earth-Mars shuttle. Or, anyhow, we _used_ to. _Till_ he got monkeying around with that new power drive of his--" "IPS?" I strangled. "Earth-Mars? _He?_" "Take it easy, friend. IPS--interplanetary space ship. Earth-Mars--round-trip route, originally. Navigator, Lancelot Biggs, the first mate.[3] Didn't you know--"