station's control section, Commander Ortega of the Space
Control Commission, an ascetic officer in plain blues, looked them up
and down severely.

"As you know, gentlemen," he said, "blastoff time is 0600. Tonnage of
cargo, fuel and empty vessels cannot be a factor, under the law. The
Mars Corporation will retain its exclusive franchise to the Earth-Mars
run, unless the ship sponsored by the Atom-Star Company returns to Earth
with full cargo at least twenty hours ahead of the ship sponsored by the
Mars Corporation. Cargo must be unloaded at Mars and new cargo taken on.
I do not consider the twenty-hour bias in favor of the Mars Corporation
a fair one," said Ortega severely, turning his gaze to Baat, "but the
Space Control Commission does not make the laws. It enforces them.
Docking and loading facilities will be available to both of you on an
equal basis at Phobos and Marsport. Good luck."

He shook hands with both of them.

"Saturn, I'm glad to get out of there!" exclaimed Baat, mopping his brow
as they left the control section. "Every time I take a step, I feel like
I'm falling on my face."

"It's because the control section's so close to the center," replied
Jonner. "The station's spinning to maintain artificial gravity, and your
feet are away from the center. As long as you're standing upright, the
pull is straight up and down to you, but actually your feet are moving
faster than your head, in a larger orbit. When you try to move, as in
normal gravity, your body swings out of that line of pull and you nearly
fall. The best corrective, I've found, is to lean backward slightly when
you start to walk."

As the two space captains walked back toward the wardroom together, Baat
said:

"Jonner, I hear the Mars Corporation offered you the _Marsward XVIII_
for this run first, and you turned them down. Why? You piloted the
_Marsward V_ and the _Wayward Lady_ for Marscorp when those upstarts in
the Argentine were trying to crack the Earth-Mars run. This Atom-Star
couldn't have enough money to buy you away from Marscorp."

"No, Marscorp offered me more," said Jonner, soberly now. "But this
atomic drive is the future of space travel, Russo. Marscorp has it, but
they're sitting on it because they've got their fingers in hydrazine
interests here, and the atom drive will make hydrazine useless for space
fuel. Unless I can break the franchise for Atom-Star, it may be a
hundred years before we switch to the atom drive in spac