but
we've got an expert here from the Government. He's worked on deals like
this with me before and he's got an idea.

"Here's the substance of it. We're going to send out a space tug from
Mercury to see if we can haul you in. It's a new, experimental tug and
it's been kept under wraps until now. But it's been designed for jobs
like this and we figure it can sure as hell do it.

"There's just one hitch, though, kid. It's a mighty powerful ship so
there's going to be a terrific shock when it contacts you and the
magnetic grapples set to work. In your medicine kit you'll find a small
hypo in a red-sealed plastic box. Take the shot that's in it
immediately and we'll have the tug out there as soon as we can. It will
probably take about twelve hours."

Donnelly's voice broke and he hesitated strangely for a moment. "You'll
be out fast," he went on. "So you won't feel a thing when the shock wave
hits you. There's less chance of injuries, this way."

* * * * *

"It's a lousy thing to do," cried Donnelly as he snapped off the set. "A
rotten, heartless way of giving the lad false hopes. But then you don't
give a damn about anybody's feelings but your own, do you, Doc?"

"Take it easy, Joe--"

"Shut up, Williams. I'm talking to this little Government time-server
over here, not to you."

The psychiatrist shrugged wearily. "I don't care what you think. I've
worked with you both on cases similar to this before, though I'll admit
that none of them were quite as hopeless. In any case, I'll do it my
way, or not at all."

"Maybe you will, maybe you will," said Donnelly. "But if I had to wait
thirty days in that thing and somebody told me it was only a matter of
hours--"

"I know what I'm doing even if you think that I don't. The Government
has developed a set approach in matters like this. Fortunately, there
aren't many of them. Perhaps if there were--"

"Let me take over, Doc," broke in Donnelly. "I'm a space-engineer and
that makes me far better qualified to handle this than you are. Why the
hell they ever put a psychiatrist on this job in the first place is
something I'll never know, if I live to be a hundred and ten. It's a job
for an engineer, not a brain washer."

"There's a lot of things you'll never know, Donnelly," the gaunt, thin
little man sighed wearily. He sat down at the long mahogany table in the
Radio Room. With a careless wave of one arm, he swept a pile of papers
and maga