I shuddered. "You mean the gadget which got us all bolixed up in the negative universe? Till Hank Cleaver came from the past to get us out?" "That's it. Well, he told Brophy about it, bragged that it would make the _Saturn_ the fastest ship in the ether. And now," Hanson groaned, "just because he shot off his big face, we've got to push this leaky old tin-can to Uranus!" I said consolingly, "Well, maybe everything will be all right, Skipper. I admit Mr. Biggs is a bit of a whacky-pot, but he's pulled us out of plenty of tough spots before. Like the time he thwarted Red Hake and his pirate crew. And the time he beat the _Slipstream_--" Hanson stared at me somberly. "Nope, I guess you ain't. You couldn't have." I said, "Which? Couldn't have what, sir?" "You mustn't have seen Mr. Biggs on this shuttle." It was the first time I had realized it, but he was right! And that was funny, because Mr. Biggs and I were old buddies. We were bunkmates once, even. I said, "Well, lift my gravs! Come to think of it, I haven't? Why, Skipper? I guess maybe it's on account of he's busy planning to get married so soon?" Hanson made sounds like a man being garrotted. "Marriage! Don't talk to me about marriage! Bert, what does marriage do to a man?" "Marriage," I replied promptly, "makes the mare go. Or, no--that's money, isn't it? I give up, sir. What?" "It's supposed," boiled Hanson, "to make him settle down. Only it ain't. Not in Biggs' case. It's having just the opposite effect. Making him flighty as a coot. Lancelot ain't been worth a tinker's dam on this trip. He can't do a single thing right! Remember our take-off, Sparks? From Long Island port? The one where we--" "--lifted gravs two full minutes before schedule?" I finished. "Don't I just! I almost did a swan dive through the aft bulkhead. Why? Did he--?" "Mmm-hmm! And he also plotted the course that took us nine degrees off trajectory. _And_ he heaved the ship into a Van-Maeden spiral by signaling for a double-jet port blast in midspace. _And_ he--" Hanson paused, panting with wrath. "But why go on? The point is, the very thought of marriage has ruined him. And we can't depend on him to help us with this assignment. And Uranus is a long way from here. A _lo-o-oong_ way!" I winced. I said, "Look, Skipper--must you say it thataway? With icicles in your voice, I mean?" * * * * * But orders is orders. We lifted gravs as commanded at 11.20 Martian Constant Time--that's 3-X-9 Solar Relative--and pointed our prow toward the spot in space where, some billion and a half odd miles away, Uranus was lounging about a wan and distant Sun like a gigantic snowball. That is, we attempted to point our prow in that direction. Cap Hanson's astrogation came a cropper on this problem. He called me to the control turret. He asked, "Sparks, have you seen him?" "You mean Mr. Biggs? No, sir."