cargos run light."

At the administration building, Jonner took his leave of Deveet and went
up to the Space Control Commission's personnel office on the second
floor. He was in luck. On the board as applying for a Mars-Earth run as
ship's doctor-psychologist was one name: Lana Elden.

He looked up the name in the Mars City directory and dialed into the
city from a nearby telephone booth. A woman's voice answered.

"Is Lana Elden there?" asked Jonner.

"I'm Lana Elden," she said.

Jonner swore under his breath. A woman! But if she weren't qualified,
her name would not have been on the Commission board.

The verbal contract was made quickly, and Jonner cut the Commission
monitor into the line to make it binding. That was done often when rival
ships, even of the same line, were bidding for the services of crewmen.

"Blastoff time is 2100 tonight," he said, ending the interview. "Be
here."

Jonner left the personnel office and walked down the hall. At the
elevator, Deveet and Kruger hurried out, almost colliding with him.

"Jonner, we've run into trouble!" exclaimed Deveet. "Space Fuels won't
sell us any hydrazine and nitric acid to refill the tanks. They say they
have a new contract with Marscorp that takes all their supply."

"Contract, hell!" snorted Jonner. "Marscorp owns Space Fuels. What can
be done about it, Kruger?"

Kruger shook his head.

"I'm all for you, but Space Control has no jurisdiction," he said. "If a
private firm wants to restrict its sales to a franchised line, there's
nothing we can do about it. If you had a franchise, we could force them
to allot fuel on the basis of cargo handled, since Space Fuels has a
monopoly here. But you don't have a franchise yet."

Jonner scratched his grey head thoughtfully.

It was a serious situation. The atom-powered _Radiant Hope_ could no
more make a planetary landing than the chemically-powered ships. Its
power gave a low, sustained thrust that permitted it to accelerate
constantly over long periods of time. To beat the powerful pull of
planetary surface gravity, the terrific burst of quick energy from the
streamlined G-boats, the planetary landing craft, was needed.

"We can still handle it," Jonner said at last. "With only twenty tons
return cargo, we can take it up this trip. Add some large parachutes to
that, Deveet. We'll shoot the end of the cable down by signal rocket,
out in the lowlands, and stop the winch when we've made contact, long
enou