"I'm putting in a call for my crew," said Lindsay. "We'll all meet in Chicago-South. There's something--" He shook the thought away with a violent shake of his head. "We'll find out in Gary." He went to the general call phone and cut a tape, fed the end into the automatic transmitter, and checked to see that the general call was being transmitted. He wondered, briefly, just which of them would get to Gary first. * * * * * When the decontamination headquarters ship arrived, it was second. The little private strato-speedster that was Jack Grant's own pride and joy was sitting in the main landing field of the Gary port when Lindsay arrived. Lindsay sort of expected that, for Grant's little high-powered job placed the owner no more than a couple of hours from any place on Terra, most of which was spent in going up and down through the thicker atmosphere near the surface. They landed, and the air lock clanged open. Moments later Jack Grant entered the scanning room with his usual whirlwind manner. "What's cooking, Ralph?" he greeted, extending an eager hand. His free arm he swept around Jenna, giving her a vigorous hug and a kiss on the forehead. "Jenna, I swear you're more beautiful by the day. Please?" "Please what?" she countered, freeing herself and backing off a bit. "Please poison him and marry me?" "Nope," she said with finality. "And I won't stand to see him ... ah ... removed, as you indelicately put it." "Ralph, you wouldn't mind getting bumped off for your wife's happiness, would you?" Lindsay usually lived through Grant's brash manner; made a mental apology for the man because he himself did not understand the kind of mind that saw little serious in life. And usually Grant's disregard of the serious side of life gave all a moral uplift, a chance to disregard with Grant all of the problems that hack and tear. But Lindsay had just seen Jim Roberts go up in a sun-hot inferno, and he was slightly sick with shock. Now, Grant's blithe manner seemed banal, crude; insufficiently sensitive. If Grant had no feelings, he should at least consider the sensitivity of others. Lindsay tried to cheer himself, and managed at best a weak, sickly grin that was lost on Grant completely. Lindsay might have made some biting remark, but he noted with some wonder that Jenna was not bitterly unhappy in the badinage. Jenna, he knew, could and would clutch hysterically at any light point in a crisis to gain just a bit of stability. Lindsay himself was inclined to cling doggedly to a situation, deviating not one bit, until it was finished satisfactorily. Then he would let down. So noting Jenna's whimsical smile, he merely said, and it was with an effort: "Think it would make her happy?" Grant laughed and hugged Jenna quickly and said: "Look, you don't mean she's actually happy--?"