The next day when he was busily dressing, the ultrafax popped out the
breakfast edition.

"_Space Bird_ takes off for Beta Quadrant. Tom Staker gambles all."

Bill stared at the pictures of the rocket climbing savagely at the
head of a column of fire. The crazy, stubborn fool. Going it alone,
risking his neck and everybody else's aboard. Well, let him go out
there and break his blasted neck on the Asteroid Belt.

For the next three days Bill saw much of Margo. She was the most
exciting thing he had ever discovered, and he indulged her laughingly
when she took to speaking of his position in Intercontinental Lines as
an accomplished fact.

On the third day he took Margo to lunch, a Margo with shining eyes,
for this was Bill's day of decision. She had done her work well.

He ordered for them, and added, "Also a bottle of champagne."

The waiter brought the champagne first. There was no doubt on Margo's
features what this was about, even though it had always been "if",
"maybe" "possibly" in Bill's discussions with her about the new job.

In the midst of picking up his glass and proposing a toast, "Here's to
my new--" Bill stopped. The ultrafax had popped out a sheet. Carefully
putting the glass down, he said, "That's a special bulletin."

Picking it up he read aloud, "Staker Rocket in serious trouble. Home
field reports damage by small meteor. Crew on emergency air bottles.
Mysterious emanations blind radar scope and disrupt communication with
Earth."

Tom--and the others, out there fighting for their lives against
suffocation and intense cold. Their quarrel seemed like the antics of
teenagers now. He had to get out to the field, see if he could help.

"What are you going to do?" Margo was watching him intently, the
knuckles of her small hands white.

"I'm going to the field."

"But--but what about that toast you were making to your new--job,
that's what you were going to say, wasn't it?" Her eyes were intense
spots of jet.

"I guess that'll have to wait, Margo," he told her. "I can't stand by
when Tom needs help."

Margo clutched his hands convulsively. "Bill, don't take a rocket up
or you'll die in the same trap he's dying in!" The words rushed out as
if through a trapdoor she could not control.

Bill glanced at her with sharp, new interest. "How do you know it's a
trap, and how do you know he's going to die?"

Tears began to well up in her large eyes. "All I can tell you is don't
go out there, Bill