"Glad to have you aboard," smiled Dusty. It all sounded very familiar; The Space Patrol had borrowed liberally from the clichés of naval procedure and courtesy and he had been through these lines at least once in every picture. "I'm Dusty Britton." Then he remembered the role he was trying to play and added, "Of The Terran Space Patrol." "Have a good passage?" asked Nort Wilgas. "Yes. A bit tiring. After all, I've never driven a galactic spacecraft before. Frankly, I'm about flat on my face." The Marandanian pilot looked into Dusty's face with a perplexed frown. "You know," he said, "It's just occurred to me--you drove this thing all the way on duty!" "Yes." "Twenty-three hours!" Dusty suddenly felt tired. He had been too busy with the board to think of it before. He had been running on nervous energy, but now it had about run out. Dusty had been this way before; so long as there was something that had to be done he had done it, but once the need was over, he invariably came unglued and slept the clock around. "Yes," he said. "I had to." "Man! What stamina!" Dusty yawned and came unglued on the divan opposite the one that Scyth Radnor occupied. Nort Wilgas nodded at him and then turned to Barbara. "You can relax too. I'll take over." Dusty Britton was fast asleep when the spacecraft made its landing on Marandis. XI Dusty awoke to find the sunshine streaming in through a small porthole and lighting the cabin cheerfully. The smell of fresh air was in his lungs, a pungent, pleasant smell faintly of cinnamon or nutmeg but not quite either. He recalled that he had folded out on the divan in the salon, now he was in one of the cabins below the salon level. He wondered how he had arrived. He stretched his muscles, the cool sheets felt pleasant against his back. Then he wondered who had undressed him and how anybody had been gentle enough to do the job without waking him. He looked around the cabin expectantly and as he looked, his door opened and a woman came in. She was wearing white from cap to slippers and Dusty pegged her for a nurse at once. She was wholesome enough, but neither her face nor her figure would have stopped any traffic on Fifth Avenue. She carried a book with a finger slipped between pages to mark her place and in her other hand she held the Marandanian equivalent of a cigarette. A pleasant curl of smoke rose from the lighted end. "Hello," she offered brightly. "And how do we feel this morning?" "We feel fine," grunted Dusty. "And we'll feel better after a shower, a shave, and some of that smoke you're using. I'd also enjoy a change of clothing." "We took the liberty of having your uniform cleaned. The shower and shaving gear is in the bath--there--and as for the cigarette, I can offer you one right now."