e Reynolds
hadn't yet lined up a backer.

"We should have planned to outfit one guy completely," Jig Hollins
grumbled on a Sunday afternoon at the shop. "Then we could have drawn
lots about who gets a chance to use the gear. That we goofed there is
your fault, Reynolds. Or--your Grandpappy didn't come through, huh?"

Charlie met Hollins' sneering gaze for a moment. "Never mind the
'Grandpappy', Jig," he said softly. "I knew that chances weren't good,
there. However, there are other prospects which I'm working on. I
remember mentioning that it might take time. As for your other remarks,
what good is equipping just one person? I thought that this was a
project for all of us."

"I'm with Charlie," Joe Kuzak commented.

"Don't fight, guys--we've got to figure on training, too," Ramos
laughed. "I've got the problem of an expensive training centrifuge about
beat. Out at my old motor scooter club. Come on, Charlie--you, too,
Jig--get your cars and let's go! It's only seven miles, and we all need
a break."

Paul Hendricks had gone for a walk. So Nelsen locked the shop, and they
all tore off, out to the place, Ramos leading the way in his scooter. At
the scooter club they found an ancient carnival device which used to be
called a motordrome. It was a vertical wooden cylinder, like a huge,
ironbound, straight sided cask, thirty feet high and wide, standing on
its bottom.

Ramos let himself and the scooter through a massive, curved
door--conforming to the curvature of the walls--at the base of the
'drome.

"Secure the latch bar of this door from the outside, fellas," he said.
"Then go to the gallery around the top to watch."

Ramos started riding his scooter in a tight circle around the bottom of
the 'drome. Increasing speed, he swung outward to the ramped juncture
between floor and smooth, circular walls. Then, moving still faster, he
was riding around the vertical walls, themselves, held there by
centrifugal force. He climbed his vehicle to the very rim of the great
cask, body out sideways, grinning and balancing, hands free, the
squirrel tails flapping from his gaudily repainted old scooter.

"Come on, you characters!" he shouted through the noise and smoke. "You
should try this, too! It's good practice for the rough stuff to come,
when we blast out!... Hey, Eileen--you try it first--ride with me--then
alone--when you get the hang of it!..."

This time she accepted. Soon she was riding by herself, smiling
reckless