Feldman's ticket was work-stamped for the _Navaho_, and nobody
questioned his identity. He suffered through the agony of acceleration
on the shuttle up to the orbital station, then was sick as acceleration
stopped. But he was able to control himself enough to follow other
crewmen down a hall of the station toward the _Navaho_. The big ships
never touched a planet, always docking at the stations.

A checker met the crew and reached for their badges. He barely glanced
at them, punched a mark for each on his checkoff sheet, and handed them
back. "Deckmen forward, tubemen to the rear," he ordered. "_Navaho_
blasts in fifteen minutes. Hey, you! You're tubes."

Feldman grunted. He should have expected it. Tubemen had the lowest lot
of all the crew. Between the killing work, the heat of the tubes, and
occasional doses of radiation, their lives weren't worth the metal value
of their tickets.

He began pulling himself clumsily along a shaft, dodging freight the
loaders were tossing from hand to hand. A bag hit his head, drawing
blood, and another caught him in the groin.

"Watch it, bo," a loader yelled at him. "You dent that bag and they'll
brig you. Cantcha see it's got a special courtesy stripe?"

It had a brilliant green stripe, he saw. It also had a name, printed in
block letters that shouted their identity before he could read the
words. _Dr. Christina Ryan, Southport, Mars._

And he'd had to choose this time to leave Earth!

Suddenly he was glad he was assigned to the tubes. It was the one place
on the ship where he'd be least likely to run into her. As a doctor and
a courtesy passenger, she'd have complete run of the ship, but she'd
hardly bother with the dangerous and unpleasant tube section.

He dragged his way back, beginning to sweat with the effort. The
_Navaho_ was an old ship. A lot of the handholds were missing, and he
had to throw himself along by erratic leaps. He was gaining proficiency,
but not enough to handle himself if the ship blasted off. Time was
growing short when he reached the aft bunkroom where the other tubemen
were waiting.

"Ben," one husky introduced himself. "Tube chief. Know how to work
this?"

Feldman could see that they were assembling a small still. He'd heard of
the phenomenal quantities of beer spacemen drank, and now he realized
what really happened to it. Hard liquor was supposed to be forbidden,
but they made their own. "I can work it," he decided. "I'm--uh--Dan."

"Oka