ow Come, May I
Ask?"

Brad gulped. Could he believe his ears? No one attacking good, kind,
old Earth? Was there nothing in which a man could pin his faith, let
alone his ears? Were they, indeed, _his_ ears?

He turned to his best friend, Ugh, who stood beside him. Would he
stand behind him? Did he realize they were on the verge of A Mission?
Ugh was a _pastiche_, or _intermezzo_--a cross between a Martian and a
Texan--as loathsome and stupid a combination as one could wish. Why he
was Brad's best friend was a mystery. Squarely, he met Brad's gaze,
which left him an eye to spare. It winked, and Brad shuddered.

It was an omen....

"I Want To Know Why!" the Commander shouted. "You Have Your Secret
Orders! Off With You!"

A really fat omen.

The good ship, _Lox Wing_, was almost ready to go. She was a fine,
spaceworthy craft, Brad knew; just the same, it _was_ disconcerting to
see rats deserting her by the thousands. Not that he missed them; some
were sure to return as soon as Ugh appeared on the scene; he seemed to
fascinate them.

Just then, the rats paused. Sure enough, Ugh was coming. He was
reeling. He had apparently made the rounds, as is the custom of
spacemen, swilling vast quantities of airplane dope, and he was high
as a kite. Brad glommed him glumly in the gloaming, with more than a
glimmer of gloomy foreboding. It was wrong, he thought, all wrong. If
only it hadn't been too late to turn back. But it wasn't. They hadn't
even started yet. If anything, it was too early. There was no way out.
He entered the spaceship with a Si. Si, whose whole name was Silas
Mariner, shook his hand weakly, muttered: "Remember the _Albatross_!"
and tottered out.

It was an omen....

Presently, Brad and Ugh were blasting off. As the cigar-shaped vessel
rose to the starry void, spacemen, their visages lined and tanned like
cigars, held their cigars aloft in silent salute and gently flicked
their ashes, while softly, a cigar band played "_Maracas, Why You No
Love Me No More?_"

Two days out, Brad summoned Ugh. "How fast are we going?"

"Oh, say ... 30,000 miles an hour?"

Brad calculated rapidly and put down his abacus. "At this rate it'll
take us 14 years just to get out of our own lousy solar system!" he
barked. "Faster!"

Ugh said Yes, Sir, and vice versa. Then he upped the speed to 186,000
miles per second and came back and shyly told Brad.

Brad said "Bah! We'll be 70 years reaching the Big Dipper! Faster!"