sound mysterious."

"Just the officers. Oh, hell. I don't know. What good would it do if I
told you?"

"I guess you'd just get it off your chest, that's all."

"I can't tell anyone official, Sheila. I'd have my head handed to me.
But I've got to think and I've got to tell someone. I'll go crazy, just
knowing and not doing anything."

"It's important, isn't it?"

* * * * *

Larry downed another drink quickly. It was his fourth and Sheila had
never seen him take more than three or four in the course of a whole
evening. "You're damned right it's important." Larry leaned forward
across the postage-stamp table. A liquor-haze clouded his eyes as he
said: "It's so important that unless someone does something about it,
we'll all be dead inside of twenty-four hours. Only trouble is, there
isn't anything anyone can do about it."

"Larry--you're a little drunk."

"I know it. I know I am. I want to be a lot drunker. What the hell can a
guy do?"

"What do you know, Larry? What have you heard?"

"I know they have the President of the Galactic Federation aboard this
ship and that he ought to be told the truth."

"No. I mean--"

"They sent out an SOS, kid. Controls are locked. Lifeboats don't have
enough power to get us out of the sun's gravitational pull. We're all
going to roast, I tell you!"

Sheila felt her heart throb wildly. Even though he was well on the way
to being thoroughly drunk, Larry was telling the truth. Instinctively,
she knew that--was certain of it. "What are you going to do?" she said.

He shrugged. "I guess because I can't do a damned thing I'm going to get
good and drunk. That's what I'm going to do. Or maybe--who the hell
knows?--maybe in one minute I'm going to jump up on this table and tell
everyone what I overheard. Maybe I ought to do that, huh?"

"Larry, Larry--if it's as bad as you say, maybe you ought to think
before you do anything."

"Who am I to think? I'm one of the muscle men. That's what they pay me
for, isn't it?"

"Larry. You don't have to shout."

"Well, isn't it?"

"If you don't calm down I'll have to leave."

"You can sit still. You can park here all night. _I'm_ leaving."

"What are you going to do?"

"Oh ... that." Larry got up from the table. He looked suddenly green and
Sheila thought it was because he had too much to drink. "You don't have
to worry about that, Sheila. Not now you don't. I all of a sudden don't
feel so good. Headac