then twisted another dial. Finally, he
faced around.

"Looks all right," he said reluctantly, "only--"

"Looks all right, period." Stan turned to the helper.

"Get that machine rolling," he ordered. "And keep your eyes on those
meters. Let's get this run finished right." He moved his head.

"Come on, friend, I'll buy you a mug of tea."

Sornal backed away.

"You ain't gonna--Look, ain't I seen you some place before? Look, I
just--"

"I said I'd buy you a mug of tea. Then, we'll talk, and that's all. I
mean it."

"I just got outta--Listen, I can't take it so good any more, see?"

"Don't worry. We aren't going to have any games this morning. Come on,
let's go."

When Sornal started talking, the flow of words was almost continuous.

He had come to Kellonia almost four years before, on a standard
one-year contract. For over twenty years, he'd moved around, working
in space-yards over the galaxy. He'd worked on short contracts,
banking his profits on his home planet. And he'd planned to finally
return to his original home on Thorwald, use his considerable savings
to buy a small business, and settle down to semi-retirement.

But an offer of highly attractive rates had brought him to Kellonia
for one last contract with Janzel.

"They got my papers somewhere around here," he said, "only I can't get
'em back any more." He shook his head wearily and went on.

Everything had gone smoothly for the first half of his contract
period. He'd drawn impressively large checks and deposited them. And
after thinking it over, he had indicated he would like an extension.

"That was when they nailed me down," he said. "There was just that one
bad run, only that was the job that sneaked through the inspection and
went bust at Proof."

"Blowup?"

Sornal grinned sourly.

"Blowup, you want to know? Even took out one of the tractor supports.
Real mess. Oh, you think they weren't mad about that!"

"You say there was just one bad run? Then everything came out normally
again?"

"Yeah. I ran a check, see? Test sample was perfect Beautiful. So then
the power went off for a while. Crew was working around. Well, they
found the trouble and cleared it, just before lunch time. I went ahead
and finished my run. It was only ten gyro assemblies--control job.

"I don't know--guess they were out of balance. Maybe the shaft alloys
came out wrong. Anyway, I finished the run and went for chow. Came
back and set up a new run."

He stared