s of space in the Dabney
field, and then two seconds in normal space from the relay in Lunar
City. It was twelve seconds between the time he finished saying
something before the first word of the reply reached him. It was very
slow communication. He reflected annoyedly that he'd have to ask Jones
to make a special Dabney field communication field as strong as was
necessary to take care of the situation.

The rockets growled and roared outside. The ship lifted. Johnny Simms
came storming up from below.

"My trophy!" he cried indignantly. "I want my trophy!"

Cochrane looked up impatiently from the screen.

"What trophy?"

"The thing I shot!" cried Johnny Simms fiercely. "I want to have it
mounted! Nobody else ever killed anything like that! I want it!"

The ship surged upward more strongly. Cochrane said coldly:

"It's too late now. Get out. I'm busy."

He returned his eyes to the screen. Johnny Simms raced for the stairs. A
little later Cochrane heard shoutings in the control-room. But he was
too busy to inquire.

The ship drifted--with all the queasy sensation of no-weight--and lifted
again, and then there was a fairly long period of weightlessness. At
such times Holden would be greenish and sick and tormented by
space-sickness. Which might be good for him at this particular time. For
a long time, it seemed, there were alternating periods of lift and free
fall, which in themselves were disturbing. Once the free fall lasted
until Cochrane began to feel uneasy. But then the rockets roared once
more and boomed loudly as if the ship were leaving the planet
altogether.

But Cochrane was talking business. In part he bluffed. In part, quite
automatically, he demanded much more than he expected to get, simply
because it is the custom in business not to be frank about anything.
Whatever he asked, the other man would offer less. So he asked too much,
and the other man offered too little, each knowing in advance very
nearly on what terms they would finally settle. Considering the cost of
beam-phone time to Lunar City, not to mention the extension to the
stars, it was absurd, but it was the way business is done.

Presently Cochrane called Babs and Alicia and had them witness a
tentative agreement, which had to be ratified by a board of directors of
a corporation back on Earth. That board would jump at it, but the
stipulation for possible cancellation had to be made. It was
mumbo-jumbo. Cochrane felt satisfyingly comp