n't sure, by any means. But even if we do, some day--and
maybe soon, too, you can't tell--somebody is going to collect fifty
grams of radium for my head."

"Fifty grams--and everybody knows that Samms himself is rated at only
sixty? I _knew_ that you were somebody, Conway!" Clio exclaimed,
undeterred. "But at that, something tells me that any pirate will earn
even that much reward several times over before he collects it. Don't be
silly, my dear--goodnight."

She tipped her head back, holding up to him her red, sweetly curved,
smiling lips, and his arms swept around her. Her arms went up around his
neck and they stood, clasped together in the motionless ecstasy of
love's first embrace.

"Girl, girl, how I love you!" Costigan's voice was husky, his usually
hard eyes were glowing with a tender light. "That settles that. I'll
really _live_ now, anyway, while...."

"Stop it!" she commanded, sharply. "You're going to live until you die
of old age--see if you don't. You'll simply _have_ to, Conway!"

"That's so, too--no percentage in dying now. All the pirates between
Tellus and Andromeda couldn't take me after this--I've got too much to
live for. Well, goodnight, sweetheart, I'd better beat it--you need some
sleep."

The lovers' parting was not as simple and straightforward a procedure as
Costigan's speech would indicate, but finally he did seek his own room
and relaxed upon a pile of cushions, his stern visage transformed.
Instead of the low metal ceiling he saw a beautiful, oval, tanned young
face, framed in a golden-blonde corona of hair. His gaze sank into the
depths of loyal, honest, dark blue eyes; and looking deeper and deeper
into those blue wells he fell asleep. Upon his face, too set and grim by
far for a man of his years--the lives of Sector Chiefs of the
Triplanetary Service were not easy, nor as a rule were they long--there
lingered as he slept that newly-acquired softness of expression, the
reflection of his transcendent happiness.

For eight hours he slept soundly, as was his wont, then, also according
to his habit and training he came wide awake, with no intermediate stage
of napping.

"Clio?" he whispered. "Awake, girl?"

"Awake!" her voice come through the ultra phone, relief in every
syllable. "Good heavens, I thought you were going to sleep until we got
to wherever it is that we're going! Come on in, you two--I don't see how
you can possibly sleep, just as though you were home in bed."

"You'