were footsteps on the tarmac
outside the ship. Both doors of the airlock were open. Four men came in.
They were young men who did not look quite as hungry as most Darians,
but there was a reason for that. Their leader introduced himself and the
others. They were the astrogators of the ship Dara had built to try to
bring food from Orede. They were not good enough, said their
self-appointed leader. They overshot their destination. They came out of
overdrive too far off line. They needed instructions.

Calhoun nodded, and observed that he'd been asking for them.

"We've got orders," said their leader, steadily, "to come on board and
learn from you how to handle this ship. It's better than the one we've
got."

"I asked for you," repeated Calhoun. "I've an idea I'll explain as we go
along. Those boxes?"

Someone was passing in iron boxes through the airlock. One of the four
very carefully brought them inside.

"They're rations," said a second young man. "We don't go anywhere
without rations--except Orede."

"Orede, yes. I think we were shooting at each other there," said Calhoun
pleasantly. "Weren't we?"

"Yes," said the young man.

He was neither cordial nor antagonistic. He was impassive. Calhoun
shrugged.

"Then we can take off immediately. Here's the communicator and there's
the button. You might call the grid and arrange for us to be lifted."

The young man seated himself at the control-board. Very professionally,
he went through the routine of preparing to lift by landing-grid, which
routine has not changed in two hundred years. He went briskly ahead
until the order to lift. Then Calhoun stopped him.

"Hold it!"

He pointed to the airlock. Both doors were open. The young man at the
control-board flushed vividly. One of the others closed and dogged the
doors.

* * * * *

The ship lifted. Calhoun watched with seeming negligence. But he found
occasion for a dozen corrections of procedure. This was presumably a
training voyage of his own suggestion. Therefore when the blueskin pilot
would have flung the Med Ship into undirected overdrive, Calhoun grew
stern. He insisted on a destination. He suggested Weald. The young men
glanced at each other and accepted the suggestion. He made the acting
pilot look up the intrinsic business of its sun and measure its apparent
brightness from just off Dara. He made him estimate the change in
brightness to be expected after so many hours i