Sign on the dotted line."

Gene picked up the document. It was an ordinary kind of form, an
application for employment as a spacehand, third class. The ship was not
named, but merely called a cargo boat. This was the paper the Company
needed to keep the investigators satisfied that no one was forced to
work on the ships against their will. Anger blinded him. He didn't take
the pen. He just stood looking at the Captain and wondering how to keep
himself from being beaten to death.

After a long moment of silence the Captain laid the pen down, grinned
horribly. He gave a snort. "It's just a formality. I'm supposed to turn
these things over to the authorities, but they never bother us anymore.
Sign it later, after you've learned. You'll be _glad_ to sign, then."

"What's my job, Captain?"

"Captain Jorgens, and don't forget the sir!"

"Captain Jorgens, sir."

"I'll put you with the Chief Engineer. He'll find work for you down in
the pile room."

The Captain laughed a nasty laugh, repeating the last phrase with
relish. "The pile room! There's a place for you, Mr. O'Neil. When you
decide to sign your papers, we'll get you a job in some other part of
this can!"

Gene found his way back to the cabin he had just left. The little guy
with the hairy neck was there, leering at the girl.

"Put you in the pile gang didn't he?"

Gene nodded, sat down wearily. "I want to sleep," he said.

"Nuts," said the little man. "I'm here to take you to the Chief
Engineer. You go on duty in half an hour. Come on!"

Gene got up. He was too sick to argue. Ann looked at him
sympathetically, noting his split lips. He managed a grin at her, "If I
never see you again, Ann, it's been nice knowing you, very nice."

"I'll see you, Gene. They'll find us tougher than they bargained for."

* * * * *

The engine room looked like some of the atomic power stations he'd seen.
Only smaller. There was no heavy concrete shielding, no lead walls.
There was shielding around the central pile, and Gene knew that inside
it was the hell of atomic chain reaction under the control of the big
levers that moved the cadmium bars. There was a steam turbine at one
end, and a huge boiler at the other. Gene didn't even try to guess how
the pile activated the jets that drove the space ship. Somehow it
"burned" the water.

This pile had been illegal from the first. Obviously some official had
been bribed to permit the first use of i