trouble
standing up on a trip back to Earth. You'd feel pretty heavy, yourself."

Brown frowned.

"Hm. I--ah--I shall ask for instructions on the matter."

He stood erect. He didn't waver on his feet as the others did. But he
wore the same magnetic-soled shoes. Joe knew, with private amusement,
that Brown must have worked hard to get a dignified stance in
weightlessness.

"Mr. Kenmore," said Brown suddenly. "Have you been assigned a definite
rank as yet?"

"Not that I know of," said Joe without interest. "I skipper the ship I
just brought up. But----"

"Your ship has no rating!" protested Brown irritably. "The skipper of a
Navy ship may be anything from a lieutenant junior grade to a captain,
depending on the size and rating of the ship. In certain circumstances
even a noncommissioned officer. Are you an enlisted man?"

"Again, not that I know of," Joe told him. "Nor my crew, either."

Brown looked at once annoyed and distressed.

"It isn't regular!" he objected. "It isn't shipshape! I should know
whether you are under my command or not! For discipline! For
organization! It should be cleared up! I shall put through an urgent
inquiry."

Joe looked at him incredulously. Lieutenant Commander Brown was a
perfectly amiable man, but he had to have things in a certain pattern
for him to recognize that they were in a pattern at all. He was more
excited over the fact that he didn't know whether he ranked Joe, than
over the much more important matter of physical deterioration in the
absence of gravity. Yet he surely understood their relative importance.
The fact was, of course, that he could confidently expect exact
instructions about the last, while he had to settle matters of
discipline and routine for himself.

"I shall ask for clarification of your status," he said worriedly. "It
shouldn't have been left unclear. I'd better attend to it at once."

He looked at Joe as if expecting a salute. He didn't get it. He clanked
away, his magnetic shoe-soles beating out a singularly martial rhythm.
He must have practised that walk, in private.

Joe got out of the airlock as another of the space barges was warped in.
Brent, the crew's psychologist, joined him when he went to unload. Brent
nodded in a friendly fashion to Joe.

"Quite a change, eh?" he said drily. "Sanford turned out to be a
crackpot with his notions of grandeur. I'm not sure that Brown's notions
of discipline aren't worse."

Joe said, "I've something