Behind them the city erupted with a criss-crossing of radio-directed searchbeams, catching and identifying skycar after skycar. Up from the city's traffic levels came jetcopters and squad hoppers and some raid-gun carriers; personnel boats; even a sprinkling of mobile communications bases. To one side and almost behind them a flight of star shells burst in a fire-fall of gorgeous color. To their other side a stream of warning tracer streaked. Howard poured on the coal. Gloria made no protest; it was a most satisfactory agreement. They buzzed across the Jersey Flats. He brought the skycab down on a flat slant landing that arrowed directly in and touched ground and skidded to a stop with all landing-gear brakes locked. They slid to within a few yards of the spacecraft. Only then did the junior spaceman pause to speak to his passenger: "Sorry, but I'm in a jam. So long!" He leaped out of the skycab, raced along the ground, went up the ladder on a dead run, flipped into the spacelock, snapped the "Close" switch as he passed the inner portal--and then, without waiting for any pre-flight checkout, Junior Spaceman Howard Reed resigned from the Space Force by slamming his controls into an emergency and unauthorized flight program that took him up and out of Earth's atmosphere in barely more than nothing flat. When he was free and clear, he relaxed in his pilot's seat, swiveled it around ... and boggled, bug-eyed, at his passenger. Gloria Hanford, still trim and shipshape in her white sharkskin suit, still carrying the overnight bag in her formal-for-travelling, white-gloved hand, sat in the spare seat. She said: "I'm sorry about this, too, but it so happens that I'm also in a jam. Where do we go from here, Spaceman?" He eyed her. "Where do you want to go?" Gloria chuckled in a throaty voice. "Away," she said. "Can you cook?" he demanded abruptly. "Yes--why?" "Then go rustle up some grub from the galley," he directed. "I'll have to keep an eye on this crate until we're free and clear. We can decide what to do next after we have time to think." She looked at him strangely. Her own attitude puzzled her. It was the first time she'd been given an order that she hadn't resented, but then of course his direction made very good sense. He looked upon her as she rose--and he found her fair. She was. Gloria Hanford was an extremely attractive dish in her own right. Amplified a few millionfold by the spaceman's enforced isolation on Eden, Tau Ceti, and later upon Flatbush, Lalande 25372, she was a dream. Either locale would have the result of making Medusa the Gorgon look like Miss Universe of All Time, but Gloria Hanford didn't need any handicaps. By some strange chemistry of non-material radiation that required no catalyst, there was no question between them. Oh, they had a lot to find out about one another, but they had plenty of time for that. That and other things.... XII