upon two things. First, how much of a start we got on Nerado.
His ship is the biggest and fastest thing I ever saw, and if he strips
her down and drives her--which he will--he'll catch us long before we
can make Tellus. On the other hand, I gave Rodebush a lot of data, and
if he and Lyman Cleveland can add it to their own stuff and get that
super-ship of ours rebuilt in time, they'll be out here on the prowl;
and they'll have what can give even Nerado plenty of argument. No use
worrying about it, anyway. We won't know anything until we can detect
one or the other of them, and then will be the time to do something
about it."

"If Nerado catches us, will you...." She paused.

"Rub you out? I will not. Even if he does catch us, and takes us back to
Nevia, I won't. There's lots more time coming onto the clock. Nerado
won't hurt either of us badly enough to leave scars, either physical,
mental, or moral. I'd kill you in a second if it were Roger; he's dirty
and he's thoroughly bad. But Nerado's a good enough old scout, in his
way. He's big and he's clean. You know, I could really like that fish,
if I could meet him on terms of equality sometime?"

"_I_ couldn't!" she declared, vigorously. "He's crawly and scaly and
snaky; and he smells so ... so...."

"So rank and fishy?" Costigan laughed deeply. "Details, girl; mere
details. I've seen people who looked like money in the bank and who
smelled like a bouquet of violets that you couldn't trust half the
length of Nerado's neck."

"But look what he did to us!" she protested. "And they weren't trying to
recapture us back there; they were trying to kill us."

"That was perfectly all right, what he did and what they did--what else
could they have done?" he wanted to know. "And while you're looking,
look at what we did to them--plenty, I'd say. But we all had it to do,
and neither side will blame the other for doing it. He's a square
shooter, I tell you."

"Well, maybe, but I don't like him a bit, and let's not talk about him
any more. Let's talk about us. Remember what you said once, when you
advised me to 'let you lay,' or whatever it was?" Woman-like, she wished
to dip again lightly into the waters of pure emotion, even though she
had such a short time before led the man out of their profoundest
depths. But Costigan, into whose hard life love of woman had never
before entered, had not yet recovered sufficiently from his soul-shaking
plunge to follow her lead. Inarticulate,