Not a natural, but he'd made the point. But he couldn't let the dice get cold now. Only the two of them aboard; that made it simpler. And the sergeant had said the power-pack used a 250 Kemp input, the same as the wall current at the house. Usable, then, and he had to get it back.... He walked slowly over to a bulkhead seat, sat down. He groped uncertainly for the brief-tube he'd brought, let it fall with a clatter to the deck. The captain was scooping it up in a trice, and Doug twisted the muscles of his face into a grimace of discomfort. "Sir,--sir, is there something wrong?" "I--no I don't think so, captain. Nervous strain, I'm afraid. I--" Another grimace. "Sergeant! Three neuro-tablets at once--" "No, no--" Doug said. "Like poison to me." He doubled over. "Captain...." "Yes sir, what can I get--" "Nothing, I'm afraid.... Back to Earth as quickly as possible--" "Back to Earth, sir? But that's impossible! We're at least thirty minutes past C-limit, sir ... the trajectory's locked. We must continue, of course." "Must--must _continue_?" "Why, yes of course, sir." Doug straightened his body, but kept his arms locked around his middle, kept the grimace on his face and feigned shortness of breath. "Of course _what_, captain?" * * * * * A look of comprehension came suddenly to the captain's face. He straightened, stood again at attention. "According to Constitutional Commandments Four, Part 3, Sub-section 12 as amended July 9, 1949, part A: 'All space craft shall be robot-controlled and shall fly predetermined trajectories, save (1) when bearing members of the Science Council and/or their certified representatives, to whom manual operation and navigation at will is singularly permissible, or (2) when insurmountable emergency shall occur. All other craft shall be launched on the predetermined trajectory as hereinbefore stipulated, and shall be compensated to their true course by remote control from Earth for so long as radio impulses between ship and Earth shall be for all practical purposes instantaneous. Beyond this limit, to be hereinafter described as Compensation Limit, whereafter distance shall create a time-lag of communications and corresponding control impulses so as to make further remote control an impracticability the ship shall continue on the trajectory as last corrected under control of its own self-directing, or autorobot, units. These units will be constructed so as to be inaccessible to all passengers, including instrument and communications technicians." For a moment Doug said nothing, let the captain remain at attention, struggling to regain his breath and composure. The man had thought the feigned sickness was simply a device to get him off guard so that his alertness might be tried with some disguised test of his knowledge of regulations. Of course that was it ... unthinkable that any officer, any rank, should give such an order as he had given for actual execution.