to land at the apogee
point of his orbit?"

"Besides"--this usually came out after two or three more
tongue-loosening toasts had been quaffed to the beasts of
Headquarters--"what's so blasted special about landing on some
God-forsaken rock _out there_?

"Hell's bells! Earth is a planet too, isn't it? And when you've been
cooped up in a parsec-gobbling pot for a very, very long two weeks, any
planet looming in your viewscope cries to be set down upon. Your own
prosaic hunk of mud is good as any!"

* * * * *

Lance Cooper's rambling thoughts broke off their aimless tracking to
swing one hundred and eighty degrees in midspace and dart right back to
Earth.

Here at this very moment--and less than a hundred yards away--came
Terra's foremost attraction for him. His hammering heartbeat would have
placed him on the "grounded" list immediately, had there been a medico
with a stethoscope hanging about to detect it.

The attraction's name was Carolyn Sagen, and she was hurrying directly
across the concrete apron.

Even under the incandescent work-lamps of the crew scrambling up and
down the ladders, she looked as fetching as a video starlet making her
first personal-appearance tour of the nation. Only the fact she was
Colonel "Hard-Head" Sagen's family pride and joy kept the helmeted and
half-puckered up techs on the rungs from whistling themselves dry in
their enthusiasm.

Now, she had completely bypassed the work area. Here, the lighting did
not reach and the paler illumination of starshine took over. It seemed
to render the girl's soft blond hair and her full warm lips more
intimately something belonging to Lance Cooper alone--and he liked that.
He saw that she had turned up the collar of her tan coat against the
night wind.

While still a step or two distant from him, Carolyn halted. Her
worshiping eyes rested fully upon the big pilot. Lance thought he
detected a troubled expression.

Then, the girl managed a tight smile that conveyed her outward
resignment to all Man's absurd aspirations to own the galaxy:

"Don't worry about 'Security,' Lance. Dad wrote me out an O.K. to
skitter up this close to the Launching Area. You know"--she gestured
self-consciously--"big crucial moment ... lovers' farewell ... I pulled
all the stops, but it worked."

"Matter of fact," she added, in an obvious attempt at facetiousness,
"Dad opined he'd have walloped the daylights out of me, if I hadn't pu