"You asked for it," she said. "You're joining the Warrior Patrol to make yourself a big-shot. You've got to have glory and blood. _I'll_ tell _you_ something. You bored the tunnel through the asteroid belt. You handled the 'Cutter.' You've done the job three times now and it's a job that one man in a thousand has the courage to tackle. Now you're walking out on the Tunnel Patrol." She hesitated, panting, catching her breath. "Well, _Mr. Big_, you're walking right out into the open where they can take a pot shot at you, and don't think they won't do it." He took two strides toward her and grasped her wrist. He must have held it tightly for tears started from her eyes. [Illustration: _Instinctively he grasped her and held her tightly against him._] "Go ahead--hurt me. You can. You're very strong." "_Who's_ taking pot shots at me?" She jerked away from him violently. "It's none of your darn business. You deserve to be shot. You're a tin horn sport, running away from a real job to get your wings covered with star dust." She backed away from him, holding her wrist, her eyes blazing. She reached the door and opened it quickly. Freedman, completely bewildered by what had happened, started after her. The light-gun shot into her hand and its barrel pointed at his stomach. "I came here to help you," she said coldly, "but I think I could shoot now, you bull-headed, star-chasing hero." He stopped short. The girl was beautiful, and so angry that her eyes seemed to shoot flame. "Who are you? Why did...?" "I came because I thought I loved you," she clipped the words off with an utterly matter of fact voice. "Now I find that you're so much in love with yourself that there isn't room for anyone else." She was gone, and the room was silent. A Parma housefly zoomed across the room and lit on the door knob. Freedman jerked the door open and the fly buzzed away. The hall was empty. He listened. Not a sound. He went back in, shaking his head slowly. "Well I'll--be...." A girl who came from nowhere. A girl he had never seen before, and she had come to say that she loved him, and in the same breath, threatened to shoot him through the stomach. Freedman sat down on the edge of the bed. He felt a little shaky.... * * * * * Lieutenant Breecher made a wide, sweeping gesture with his free hand. "The Warrior Patrol of Parma." Blair Freedman sat in the cramped, efficient little fighter rocket, following Breecher's hand as the Warrior Patrol swept in toward the entrance to the Asteroid Tunnel. "I'm proud to be in the force," Freedman said. "I've watched you men for years. Always had the feeling that I had to desert those pluggy patrol ships and get into the fighters. It's a great feeling. A clean feeling, as though I've dropped the slow, dull life and kicked up my heels for a real run in the void." Breecher's head came around slowly, where he could study Freedman's face more easily.