the perspectiveless black repelled him. He liked rocket rac-
ing only because of the neat timing necessary, and possibly
because the knowledge that he indulged in it scared poor old
Bill Walden half to death.
Today the bleak aspect of the Galaxy harried his mind
back upon its own problems. A particularly nasty associa-
tion of Clara with Bill Walden and his snivelling kid kept
dogging Conrad's mind and, as soon as stunting had exhaust-
ed his excess of fuel, he turned the ship to earth and sent it
in with a short, spectacular burst.
Now that he stopped to consider it, Clara's strange be-
haviour had begun at about the same time that Bill Walden
started cheating on the shifts. That kid Mary must have
known something was going on, or she would not have done
such a disgusting thing as to come to their apartment.
Conrad had let the rocket fall nose-down, until now it was
screaming into the upper ionosphere. With no time to spare,
be swivelled the ship on its guiding jets and opened the
drive blast at the uprushing earth. He had just completed
this wrenching manoeuvre when two appalling things happened
together.
Conrad suddenly knew, whether as a momentary leak from
Bill's mind to his, or as a rapid calculation of his own, that
Bill Walden and Clara shared a secret. At the same mo-
ment, something tore through his mind like fingers of chill
wind. With seven gravities mashing him into the bucket-
seat, he grunted curses past thin-stretched lips.
'Great blue psychiatrists! What in thirty strait-jackets is
that three-headed fool trying to do, kill us both?'
Conrad just managed to raise his leaden hand and set the
plummeting racer for automatic pilot before Bill Walden
forced him out of the shift. In his last moment of conscious-
ness, and in the shock of his overwhelming shame, Conrad
felt the bitter irony that he could not cut the power and kill
Bffl Walden.
When Bill Walden became conscious of the thunderous
clamour of the braking ship and the awful weight of deceler-
ation into which he had shifted, the core of him froze. He
was so terrified that he could not have thought of reshifting
even had there been time.
His head rolled on the pad in spite of its weight, and he
saw the earth coming at him like a monstrous swatter aimed
at a fly. Between his fright and the inhuman gravity, he lost
consciousness without ever seeing on the control panel the
red warning that saved him:
The ship settled itself on the ramp in a mushroom of fire.
Bill regained awareness several seconds later. He was too
shaken to do anything but sit there for a long time.
When at last he felt capable of moving, he struggled with
the door till he found how to open it, and climbed down to
