ntrol Six to Procyon One. I read you ten and zero. How do you read
me, Procyon One?"

"Ten and zero. Out." Deston flipped a toggle and the solitary green
light went out.

Perfect signal and zero noise. That was that. From now until
Emergence--unless something happened--he might as well be a passenger.
Everything was automatic, unless and until some robot or computer yelled
for help. Deston leaned back in his bucket seat and lighted a cigarette.
He didn't need to scan the board constantly now; any trouble signal
would jump right out at him.

Promptly at Dee plus Three Zero Zero--three hours, no minutes, no
seconds after departure--his relief appeared.

"All black, Babe?" the newcomer asked.

"As the pit, Eddie. Take over." Eddie did so. "You've picked out your
girl friend for the trip, I suppose?"

"Not yet. I got sidetracked watching Bobby Warner. She was doing
handstands and handwalks and forward and back flips in the lounge--under
one point five gees yet. _Wow!_ And after that all the other women
looked like a dime's worth of catmeat. She doesn't stand out too much
until she starts to move, but then--Oh, _brother_!" Eddie rolled his
eyes, made motions with his hands, and whistled expressively. "Talk
about poetry in motion! Just walking across a stage, she'd bring down
the house and stop the show cold in its tracks."

"O. K., O. K., don't blow a fuse," Deston said, resignedly. "I know.
You'll love her undyingly; all this trip, maybe. So bring her up, next
watch, and I'll give her a gold badge. As usual."

"You ... how _dumb_ can you get?" Eddie demanded. "D'you think I'd even
_try_ to play footsie with _Barbara Warner_?"

"You'd play footsie with the Archangel Michael's sister if she'd let
you; and she probably would. So who's Barbara Warner?"

Eddie Thompson gazed at his superior pityingly. "I know you're ten nines
per cent monk, Babe, but I _did_ think you pulled your nose out of the
megacycles often enough to learn a _few_ of the facts of life. Did you
ever hear of Warner Oil?"

"I think so." Deston thought for a moment. "Found a big new field,
didn't they? In South America somewhere?"

"Just the biggest on Earth, is all. And not only on Earth. He operates
in all the systems for a hundred parsecs around, and he never sinks a
dry hole. Every well he drills is a gusher that blows the rig clear up
into the stratosphere. Everybody wonders how he does it. My guess is
that his wife's an oil-witch, which is