ork for him on the Moon, he figured he might as well take
me as any other good all-around mechanic and technician. He hadn't
asked me, though--that had been my own stupid idea.

Paul Tremaine, self-cure expert! I'd picked up a nice phobia against
space when the super-liner _Lauri Ellu_ cracked up with four hundred
passengers on my first watch as second engineer. I'd gotten free and
into a suit, but after they rescued me, it had taken two years on the
Moon before I could get up nerve for the shuttle back to Earth. And
after eight years home, I should have let well enough alone. If I'd
known anything about Pietro's expedition, I'd have wrapped myself in
my phobia and loved it.

But I didn't know then that he'd done well with priorities and only
fair with funds. The best he could afford was the rental of the old
Earth-Mars-Venus triangle freighter. Naturally, when the _Wahoo's_
crew heard they were slated for what would be at least three years off
Earth without fancy bonus rates, they quit. Since nobody else would
sign on, Pietro had used his priorities to get an injunction that
forced them back aboard. He'd stuffed extra oxygen, water, food and
fertilizer on top of her regular supplies, then, filled her holds with
some top level fuel he'd gotten from a government assist, and set
out. And by the time I found out about it, my own contract was
iron-bound, and I was stuck.

As an astrophysicist, Pietro was probably tops. As a man to run the
Lunar Observatory, he was a fine executive. But as a man to head up an
expedition into deep space, somebody should have given him back his
teething ring.

Not that the _Wahoo_ couldn't make the trip with the new fuel; she'd
been one of the early survey ships before they turned her into a
freighter. But she was meant for a crew of maybe six, on trips of a
couple of months. There were no game rooms, no lounges, no bar or
library--nothing but what had to be. The only thing left for most of
us aboard was to develop our hatreds of the petty faults of the
others. Even with a homogeneous and willing crew, it was a perfect
set-up for cabin fever, and we were as heterogeneous as they came.

Naturally the crew hated the science boys after being impressed into
duty, and also took it out on the officers. The officers felt the same
about both other groups. And the scientists hated the officers and
crew for all the inconveniences of the old _Wahoo_. Me? I was in
no-man's land--technically in the s