no more and no less reality than
that. Our work is all read into a computer and checked against
everybody else's. At first we keep clashing. Gradually a consistent
picture builds up and gets translated finally into the Personal
Background Kits. The Lost Kafoozalum start to exist like people in a
History book.

Fifteen days hard work and we have just about finished; then we
reach--call it Planet Gilgamesh.

I wake in my bunk to hear that there will be brief cessation of
weight; strap down, please.

We are coming off Mass-Time to go on planetary drive.

Colonel Delano-Smith is in charge of operations on the planet, with
Ram and Peter to assist. None of the rest of us see the melting out of
fifty years' accumulation of ice, the pumping away of the water, the
fitting and testing of the holds for the grappling-beams. We stay
inside the ship, on five-eighths gee which we do not have time to get
used to, and try to work, and discard the results before the computer
can do so. There is hardly any work left to do, anyway.

It takes nearly twelve hours to get the ship free, and caulked, and
ready to lift. (Her hull has to be patched because of Mr. Yardo's
operations which make use of several sorts of vapors). Then there is a
queer blind period with Up now one way, now another, and sudden jerks
and tugs that upset everything not in gimbals or tied down;
interspersed with periods when weightlessness supervenes with no
warning at all. After an hour or two of this it would be hard to say
whether Mental or physical discomfort is more acute; B consulted,
however, says my autonomic system must be quite something, after five
minutes _her_ thoughts were with her viscera entirely.

Then, suddenly, we are back on Mass-Time again.

Two days to go.

* * * * *

At first being on Mass-Time makes everything seem normal again. By
sleep time there is a strain, and next day it is everywhere. I know as
well as any that on Mass-Time the greater the mass the faster the
shift; all the same I cannot help feeling we are being slowed, dragged
back by the dead ship coupled to our live one.

When you stand by the hull _Gilgamesh_ is only ten feet away.

I should have kept something to work on like B and Kirsty who have not
done their Letters for Home in Case of Accidents; mine is signed and
sealed long ago. I am making a good start on a Neurosis when
Delano-Smith announces a Meeting for one hour ahead.

Hurrah!