cience group, but without a pure
science degree; I had an officer's feelings left over from graduating
as an engineer on the ships; and I looked like a crewman.

It cured my phobia, all right. After the first month out, I was too
disgusted to go into a fear funk. But I found out it didn't help a bit
to like space again and know I'd stay washed up as a spaceman.

* * * * *

We'd been jinxed from the start. Two months out, the whole crew of
scientists came down with something Doc Napier finally diagnosed as
food poisoning; maybe he was right, since our group ate in our own
mess hall, and the crew and officers who didn't eat with us didn't get
it. Our astronomer, Bill Sanderson, almost died. I'd been lucky, but
then I never did react to things much. There were a lot of other small
troubles, but the next major trick had been fumes from the nuclear
generators getting up into our quarters--it was always our group that
had the trouble. If Eve Nolan hadn't been puttering with some of her
trick films at the time--she and Walt Harris had the so-called night
shift--and seen them blacken, we'd have been dead before they
discovered it. And it took us two weeks of bunking with the sullen
crew and decontamination before we could pick up life again. Engineer
Wilcox had been decent about helping with it, blaming himself. But it
had been a mess.

Naturally, there were dark hints that someone was trying to get us;
but I couldn't see any crewman wiping us out just to return to Earth,
where our contract, with its completion clause, would mean he wouldn't
have a dime coming to him. Anyhow, the way things were going, we'd all
go berserk before we reached Saturn.

The lunch gong sounded, but I let it ring. Bullard would be serving us
whole wheat biscuits and soup made out of beans he'd let soak until
they turned sour. I couldn't take any more of that junk, the way I
felt then. I heard some of the men going down the corridor, followed
by a confused rumble of voices. Then somebody let out a yell. "Hey,
_rooob_!"

That meant something. The old yell spacemen had picked up from carney
people to rally their kind around against the foe. And I had a good
idea of who was the foe. I heard the yell bounce down the passage
again, and the slam of answering feet.

Then the gravity field went off. Or rather, was cut off. We may have
missed the boat in getting anti-gravity, if there is such a thing, but
our artificial g