"Done," and the tech started to peel. He balked at Dusty's famous 'Blaster'? "That's worth another--" "Another fifty--dammit!" agreed Gramer. "Now, wave out the door while Dusty leaves." The roar that went up was for their beloved hero waving out of the spacelock, not the tech that came down the ramp with a rush, followed by the portly Martin Gramer. The spacelock swung closed as the spaceport jeep pulled away with Dusty and Gramer in the back. They were a half mile away when the thunder came. No one even noticed them wending their way through the crowd, for every eye on the field was looking upwards, straining to see the spacecraft that was carrying Dusty Britton and The Space Patrol off to new adventures. * * * * * About a hundred miles off the coast of Baja California, Scyth Radnor sat in the control room of the big spacecraft. The dome was awash. Scyth sat high in the dome watching the pleasantly lazy progress of a forty foot schooner that was coming in his direction. It was a pretty sight and Scyth appreciated it even though he had been born on Marandis some thirty thousand years after the sail as a functional device had been outmoded. Sail, to Scyth, was strictly a vacation sort of thing, just as it was to Dusty Britton and a few billion other people whose lives are geared to a time-table except for vacation time. If there was any puzzlement over this, it was because Scyth's menslator was not following the rocket, now laboring in free flight towards Venus. Dusty, according to what Scyth had been able to pick up, should have been there instead of here. But Scyth was not the burning inquisitive type. He knew that there was some explanation and that he could afford to wait until it was given instead of wasting a lot of energy trying to figure out the motives of a member of a race unknown to him. He had better things to contemplate. In the field of his telescope he could see a sight he approved of. It was not Dusty Britton, lazing easily near the wheel of the schooner, keeping the helm steady with his left foot because his hands were occupied with a drink on one and a cigarette in the other. It was Barbara Crandall, lying on the cabin on a blanket. Her ankles were crossed and the arch of the upper foot was high and graceful. One thigh, slightly higher than the other, glinted from the sunshine, dark tan. Her breasts pointed at the sky, molded in dazzling white that contrasted sharply against the healthy, animal tan of her flat tummy. There were many more square feet of healthy hide showing than there were of the white shark-skin affair she wore, and Scyth approved of the view. As he watched her, Dusty drained his drink, tossed his cigarette overboard, and called: "Hey, Barb! Get us another quart, will you?" Scyth did not hear it, for his menslator was by no means that competent a device. He just watched and wondered what they were saying. Barbara called back, "Out of it already?"