dome, returning with heavy boxes. Fuel--supplies--Raf
shrugged off the problem. The pilot was secretly relieved when Captain
Hobart dropped out of the hatch in the globe and made his way over to the
flitter.

"Everything running smoothly?" he asked with a glance at the two
aliens who were Raf's passengers.

"Yes, sir. Any idea how much farther--?" Raf questioned.

Hobart shrugged. "Until we work out basic language difficulties," he
muttered, "who knows anything? There is at least one more of these way
stations. They don't run on atomics, need some kind of fuel, and they
have to have new supplies every so often. Their head man can't
understand why it isn't necessary for us to do the same."

"Has he suggested that his techneers want a look at our motors, sir?"

Hobart unbent a little. It was as if in that question he had read
something which pleased him. "So far we've managed not to understand
that. And if anyone tries it on his own, refer him to me--understand?"

"Yes, sir!" Some of the relief in Raf's tone came through, and he saw
that the captain was watching him narrowly.

"You don't like these people, Kurbi?"

The pilot replied with the truth. "I don't feel easy with them, sir.
Not that they've shown any unfriendliness. Maybe it's because they're
alien--"

He had said the wrong thing and knew it immediately.

"That sounds like prejudice, Kurbi!" Hobart's voice carried the snap
of a reprimand.

"Yes, sir," Raf said woodenly. That had done it as far as the captain
was concerned. The fierce racial and economical prejudices which had
been the keystones of the structure of Pax had left their shadow on
Terra's thinking. Nowadays a man would better be condemned for murder
than for prejudice against another--it was the unforgivable crime. And
in that unconsidered answer Raf had rendered unreliable in the eyes of
authority any future report on the aliens which he might be forced to
make.

Silently cursing his lack of judgment, Raf made a careful check of the
flyer, which might not be necessary but going through the motions of
doing his duty gave him some relief. Once the idea struck him of
claiming some trouble that would take them back to the spacer for
repairs. But Hobart was too good a mechanic himself not to see through
that.

They covered the second stage of their flight by evening, this time
putting down on an island where, by some ancient and titanic feat of
labor, the top had been sheared off a centr