"Oh, sure. That's why you were on Luna!" She looked at him levelly in the eye, but her shoulders drooped a trifle with the resignation of one who has often been disbelieved. "My husband was a nice guy," she murmured, "but he never did know when he had a drink too many for piloting his jet. He passed out trying to give me a wild ride, and I got to the controls just in time to crash-land the rocket; that's where they found me before I came to." "Oh," said Phillips. "I'm not half as hard as I'm trying to pretend," Donna went on, "even after a year on Luna. But I was a nurse before I was married. I'm thinking about what it will be like if this plague hits the planets before they find something to fight it with. The children ... imagine that, will you?" Phillips stared at the range indicator. It seemed there were times when an ugly thing had to be done for the common good. He wondered how the old-time executioners had felt, in the days when there had been judicial homicide. There were still jailers, for that matter, and men who butchered cattle. "Call it a mercy killing," murmured Donna between pale lips. "Maybe you think _that_ isn't still done once in a while, in spite of modern society." "Ummh," Phillips grunted. "Well, if you can watch at this end, Truesdale and I can go set up a couple of torpedoes. I hope those rocket blasts didn't give us away." "According to Varret," said Truesdale, "there can't be many of them still able to think straight enough to stand on watch. I wonder what it's like...." Phillips glanced askance at him, but led the way into the corridor. First of all, he stopped at the rocket room to check the tube readings. The fired jets had been automatically recharged. * * * * * They left the rocket room and climbed the ladder to the turret. Once inside, Phillips spent the first few minutes inspecting the equipment and thumbing through the manuals left there by Varret. Finally, the bored Truesdale broke in upon his study. "That old goat must be crazy to think he could toss us out here and have us act like a trained crew. How can we even hope to do anything right, without blowing ourselves up?" "We can try," said Phillips coldly. "It shouldn't be impossible to get one started, at least." He found the twin control panels in the bulkhead, and pulled a pair of switches. There was a smooth humming and a slight click as two hatches in the deck slid open. Slanting metal chutes rose out of the dark apertures, just behind the conveyor belts. "Look at those babies!" breathed Phillips. The snouts of two miniature spaceships protruded from the storage hold. Phillips touched other switches, and the sleek missiles were prodded onto the belts and moved forward until the full, twenty-foot lengths were in view. "Phillips, you better be careful with those things!" quavered Truesdale as the engineer unscrewed a small hatch on one. "Afraid I'll blow it up?" asked Phillips, peering inside.