t off on _this_ subject, I
wonder? Because when we aren't fighting, like now, it's purely
wonderful. So I'll say it again. Good night, Clee, darling."

"Good night, ace." In the dark his lips sought hers and found them.

The fervor of her kiss was not only much more intense than any he had
ever felt before. It was much, very much more intense than Belle Bellamy
had either wanted it or intended it to be.

* * *

Next morning, at the workman's hour of eight o'clock, the four
Tellurians appeared in the office of Margonia's Galaxian Field.

"The first thing to do, Deggi, is to go over in detail your blueprints
for the generators and the drive," Garlock said.

"I suppose so. The funny pictures, eh?" Delcamp had learned much, the
previous day; his own performance with the _Pleiades_ had humbled him
markedly.

"By no means, my friend," Garlock said, cheerfully. "While your stuff
isn't exactly like ours--it couldn't be, hardly; the field is so big and
so new--that alone is no reason for it not to work. James can tell you.
He's the Solar System's top engineer. What do you think, Jim?"

"What I saw in the ship yesterday will work. What few of the prints I
saw yesterday will fabricate, and the fabrications will work. The main
trouble with this project, it seems to me, is that nobody's building the
ship."

"What do you mean by _that_ crack?" Fao blazed.

"Just that. You're a bunch of prima donnas; each doing exactly as he
pleases. So some of the stuff is getting done three or four times, in
three or four different ways, while a lot of it isn't getting done at
all."

"Such as?" Delcamp demanded, and--

"Well, if you don't like the way we are doing things you can...." Fao
began.

"Just a minute, everybody." Lola came in, with a disarming grin. "How
much of that is hindsight, Jim? You've built one, you know--and from all
accounts, progress wasn't nearly as smooth as your story can be taken to
indicate."

"You've got a point there, Lola," Garlock agreed. "We slid back two
steps for every three we took forward."

"Well ... maybe," James admitted.

"So why don't you, Fao and Deggi, put Jim in charge of construction?"

Fao threw back her silvery head and glared, but Delcamp jumped at the
chance. "Would you, Jim?"

"Sure--unless Miss Talaho objects."

"She won't." Delcamp's eyes locked with Fao's, and Fao kept still.
"Thanks immensely, Jim. And I know what you mean." He went over to a
c