corridor. She tagged along a step or two behind him.

"Today's your birthday, isn't it?"

"Right enough," Alan said again, more abruptly. He felt a sudden twinge
of annoyance; Judy had somehow developed a silly crush on him during the
last voyage to Alpha C, and since then she had contrived to follow him
around wherever he went, bombarding him with questions. She was a silly
adolescent girl, Alan thought scornfully.

"Happy birthday," she said, giggling. "Can I kiss you?"

"No," returned Alan flatly. "You better watch out or I'm going to get
Rat after you."

"Oh, I'm not afraid of that little beast," she retorted. "One of these
days I'll chuck him down the disposal hatch like the little vermin
he--_ouch!_"

"You watch out who you're calling vermin," said a thin, dry,
barely-audible voice from the floor.

Alan glanced down and saw Rat, his pet and companion, squatting near
Judy and flicking his beady little red eyes mischievously in the
direction of the girl's bare skinny ankle.

"He _bit_ me," Judy complained, gesturing as if she were going to step
on the little creature. But Rat nimbly skittered to one side, leaped to
the trousers of Alan's uniform, and from there clambered to his usual
perch aboard his master's shoulder.

Judy gestured at him in frustration, stamped her foot, and dashed away
into the mess hall. Chuckling, Alan followed and found his seat at the
bench assigned to Crewmen of his status quotient.

"Thanks, fellow," he said softly to the little being on his shoulder.
"That's kid's getting to be pretty annoying."

"I figured as much," Rat said in his chittering birdlike voice. "And I
don't like the way she's been looking at me. She's just the kind of
individual who _would_ dump me in a disposal hatch."

"Don't worry about it," Alan said. "If she pulls anything of the sort
I'll personally see to it that she goes out right after you."

"That does _me_ a lot of good," Rat said glumly as Alan's breakfast came
rolling toward him on the plastic conveyor belt from the kitchen.

Alan laughed and reached avidly for the steaming tray of food. He poured
a little of his synthorange juice into a tiny pan for Rat, and fell to.

Rat was a native of Bellatrix VII, an Earth-size windswept world that
orbited the bright star in the Orion constellation. He was a member of
one of the three intelligent races that shared the planet with a small
colony of Earthmen.

The _Valhalla_ had made the long trip to Bell