ium, which,
among other things, speeded that process up considerably. A cartridge
was good for about five years; two of them kept the engines in
operation.

The engines themselves converted the electric current from the power
cartridges into magnetic current, and lifted the ship and propelled
it. Abdullah was explaining that to Murell and Murell seemed to be
getting it satisfactorily.

Finally, we left them; Murell wanted to see the sunset some more and
went up to the conning tower where Joe and Ramon were, and I decided
to take a nap while I had a chance.

8

PRACTICE, 50-MM GUN

It seemed as though I had barely fallen asleep before I was wakened by
the ship changing direction and losing altitude. I knew there were
clouds coming in from the east, now, on the lower air currents, and I
supposed that Joe was taking the _Javelin_ below them to have a look
at the surface of the sea. So I ran up to the conning tower, and when
I got there I found that the lower clouds were solid over us, it was
growing dark, and another hunter-ship was approaching with her lights
on.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"_Bulldog_, Nip Spazoni," Joe told me. "Nip's bringing my saloon
fighter aboard, and he wants to meet Mr. Murell."

I remembered that the man who had roughed up the Ravick goon in
Martian Joe's had made his getaway from town in the _Bulldog_. As I
watched, the other ship's boat dropped out from her stern, went
end-over-end for an instant, and then straightened out and came
circling around astern of us, matching our speed and ejecting a
magnetic grapple.

Nip Spazoni and another man climbed out with life lines fast to their
belts and crawled along our upper deck, catching life lines that were
thrown out to them and snapping onto them before casting loose the
ones from their boat. Somebody at the lock under the conning tower
hauled them in.

Nip Spazoni's name was Old Terran Italian, but he had slanted
Mongoloid eyes and a sparse little chin-beard, which accounted for his
nickname. The amount of intermarriage that's gone on since the First
Century, any resemblance between people's names and their appearances
is purely coincidental. Oscar Fujisawa, who looks as though his name
ought to be Lief Ericsson, for example.

"Here's your prodigal, Joe," he was saying, peeling out of his parka
as he came up the ladder. "I owe him a second gunner's share on a
monster, fifteen tons of wax."

"Hey, that was a good one. You hea