een designed for a much larger man, and I
gritted my teeth in the expectation of taking a beating.

* * * * *

After a bruising few minutes, we went weightless, then the servos put us
back on internal gravity, and the crew unstrapped.

They ignored me studiously; it wasn't entirely bad manners; there's
plenty to be done in the interval prior to the first hop, and it isn't
all in just checking co-ordinates and programming master con.

The usual space plan calls for several accelerations and a lot of
distance between Terra-Luna proximity and Solar System departure. But
Space Regs are disregarded on Priority One missions. So, for probably
less than an hour, things were going to be busy in Astrogation.

I retrieved my kit and looked for an unoccupied cubicle.

GS star ships are designed to accommodate twenty-four men in reasonable
comfort--a figure arrived at more historically--the sum of
experience--than arbitrarily, as the minimum number necessary for the
adequate exploration of a new star system.

It breaks down this way: six men to a team, four teams maximum; three
for planetary grounding, one for ship's con; since any given team can do
either task, they are interchangeable, who gets which depends upon
rotation; three for exploration, then, because averages spread over
several generations of interstellar capability bear out the fact that
mother primaries generally possess no more than three planets that are
in the least amicable to humans.

I was more than cursorily familiar with the drill. The basic requirement
for Interstel is five years' service with a survey team. I'd spent nine.
Which is another reason for general GS enmity: the turncoat syndrome.
That and the fact that prospective agents are not even considered unless
they rate in the top one per cent in service qualification and fitness
reports: the jealousy angle. I'd known Moya from my last regular duty
ship. I'd worked up from assistant under his tutelage. I'd been ready
for the Team Co-ordinator/Master Spaceman exams when I'd applied for
transfer. Moya had raged for hours. But he'd given me a first-rate
recommendation. Call it service pride.

I was just getting a start on the vid tapes when the cubicle's panel
dilated and Moya stamped in, bristling like a game cock.

"What's all this about Epsilon-Terra?"

I removed the ear bead and grinned at him.

"Hello, Tony, you old space dog! You're looking fine. What happened