ls,
forces before he got excited.

He was one who, even in childhood, had never wanted to be an E. He
didn't want to be one now. Somebody had once told him in Personnel that
was why he was a favorite pilot of the E's, but he discounted that. They
didn't try to tell him how to run his ship--well, most of them
didn't--and he didn't try to tell them how to solve their problems.

The men around the hangar had another version of why the E's liked him
to pilot them around--he was lucky. Somehow he always managed to come
back, and bring the E with him. Well, sure. He didn't want to get stuck
somewhere, wind up in a gulio's gullet, gassed by an atmosphere that
turned from oxygen-nitrogen into pure methane without warning or reason,
and against all known chemical laws, or whiffed out in the lash of a
dead star suddenly gone nova.

But sometimes a pilot couldn't help himself. These E's would fiddle
around in places where human beings shouldn't have gone. Most of the
time they weren't allowed even one mistake. He was lucky, sure, but part
of it might be because he'd never been sent out with the wrong E.

There could be a first time. Luck ran out if you kept piling your bets
higher and higher. But until then ...

He was square-jawed, a freckled man with red hair. Contrary to
superstition, he didn't have a fiery temper. He was forty and had
already built up a seniority of twenty years in deep space. He was
captain of his ship and wanted nothing more. Sure, it was only a
three-man crew--himself, a flight engineer, an astronavigator. But it
was an E ship, which meant that he outranked even the captains of the
great luxury liners.

There was a time when the realization caused him to strut a little, but
he'd got over it. He was single, had no ties, wanted none. He had a good
job which he took seriously, was doing significant work which he also
took seriously, was paid premium wages even for a space captain, which
didn't matter except in terms of recognition. He didn't mind going
anywhere in the known universe, or how long he would be away. He hoped
he would get back someday, but he wasn't fanatic about it.

In a routine so well-practiced that it had become ritual, he checked
over the cruiser point by point. Of course the maintenance men had
checked each item when they had, after his last trip, dismantled,
cleaned, oiled, polished, tested, and reassembled one part after
another. Then maintenance supervisors had checked over the s