'Honestly, Angela, I'll make it up, I promise.'
'I know you will, darling. And at least I'm grateful you
saved me from all those rocket jets in there.' Angela raised
her lips for a kiss and afterwards, as she pushed him towards
the door, her slightly vacant face smiled at him.
Out on the ramp, Conrad found another pilot ready to
take off. They made two wagersfirst to reach the racing
course, and winner in a six-lap heat around the six-hundred-
mile hexagonal course.
They fired together and Conrad blasted his ship up on a
thunderous column of flame that squeezed him into his seat.
He was good at this and he knew he would win the lift to
the course. On the course, though, if his opponent was any
good at all, Conrad would probably lose, because he enjoyed
slamming the ship around the course in his wasteful, swash-
buckling style much more than merely winning the heat.
Conrad kept his drive on till the last possible second and
then shot out his nose jets. The ship shuddered up through
another hundred miles and came to a lolling halt near the
starting buoys. The other pilot gasped when Conrad shouted
at him over the intership, 'The winner by all thirty heads!'
It was generally assumed that a race up to the course con-
sisted of cutting all jets when you had enough lift, and using
the nose brakes only to correct any overshot. 'What did you
do, just keep your power on and flip the ship around?' The
other racer coasted up to Conrad's level and steadied with a
brief forward burst.
They got the automatic signal from the starting buoy and
went for the first turn, nose and nose, about half a mile
apart. Conrad lost 5,000 yards on the first turn by shoving
his power too hard against the starboard steering jets.
It made a pretty picture when a racer hammered its way
around a turn that way with a fan of outside jets holding it in
place. The other fellow made his turns cleanly, using mostly
the driving jets for steering. But that didn't look like much
to those who happened to flip on their television while this
little heat was in progress. On every turn, Conrad lost a little
in space, but not in the eye of the automatic televisor on the
buoy marking the turn. As usual, he cut closer to the buoys
than regulations allowed, to give the folks a show.
Without the slightest regret, Conrad lost the heat by a full
two sides of the hexagon. He congratulated his opponent and
watched the fellow let his ship down carefully towards earth
on its tail jets. For a while Conrad lolled his ship around
near the starting buoy and its probably watching eye, flipping
through a series of complicated manoeuvres with the steering
jets.
Conrad did not like the grim countenance of outer space.
The lifeless, gem-like blaze of cloud upon cloud of stars in
