don't you, why we haven't attacked Earth? A body can't keep his mind on anything around here! I asked for a few secret weapons, and what did I get?" He was blubbering now. "Oh, I tried, I tried! Appropriations and all that; you may be sure we lined our pockets—but after years of stalling, they showed up with two weapons they swore were terrible enough to put an end to war. One of them was a water pistol."

"I see," said Brad. "And the other?"

"A ray gun."

Brad's eyes brightened. "A ray gun? May I see how it works?"

"Indeed you may!"

A platoon of maroon dragoons dragged in a queer apparatus. It looked like a medieval cannon, with a Victorian phonograph speaker flaring from its business end. The dragoons ranged around the weapon, keeping their backs to it. One of them clutched the firing lanyard. There was a pause, a brittle silence—then the lanyard snapped!

"'Ray!'" shouted the ray gun.

"What was that?" asked Brad.

Twice more the lanyard snapped. The ray gun boomed: "'Ray! Ray!'"

"You mean all it does is shout 'Ray?'" asked Brad.

"Well, it can also shout 'Max'," said the old man. "Fearful, ain't it?"

"Yes," said Brad. He took a piece of old parchment from a breast pocket. "This," he stated, "is the original deed to Manhattan. Notice here on the bottom where it says $24. I am signing it over to you." He signed with a flourish. "Now you have a legal claim, a crusade, and a nice piece of property. Go get it!"

"But the headaches!" cried the old man.

"Cool, man, cool!" said Brad. "I'll mix a Bromo."

"Is it habit-forming?" cried the High Kruv.

"Not a bit," said Brad, mixing it. "Simply take one an hour, forever. And now I must bid you farewell."

"Wait!" cried the Kruv. "Don't you want to take my lovely daughter back with you?"

Brad looked at her. She was lovely. She had scales, but she was lovely. She had magnificent blonde hair, some of it almost an inch long, none of it on her head, but she was lovely.

"... Well," said Brad, hesitatingly. He had his eyes glued on her; when he took them off, they made a noise like vacuum cups: "Pfffopp!"

"Your mother won't like her," whispered Ugh.

"... Well," said Brad. He could feel Duty tugging inside. Not for him the pipe and slippers. He was one of spaceway's men; he would go the spacemen's way, off into waymen's space. Waymen, not women, he told himself sternly. The call of the Ether ... the vacuous void ... the black velvet wastes ... the outspread cloak of the universe, dripping with stardust ... the undreamt-of galaxies ... these were the things by which he lived. "... Well," said Brad.

"C'mon," said Ugh. "We'll only fight over her."

Slowly, they bounded back to their spaceship.

The ship sped backward, headed for Earth. It was days before the mistake was discovered, and this alone spared their lives. For had they completed their journey on schedule—but why be morbid?

The fact is, the Earth blew up. What a sight. The whole thing, whirling one minute like the globe in Miss Fogarty's geography supply closet—the next minute, whamo!

"Gee," said Ugh, soberly. "Guess we're lucky, huh?"

"... Well," said Brad. He hadn't said anything else for days, but he didn't seem well at all. Funny, he thought. They promise you if you go on working, work hard and don't fool around, don't ask questions, just do your job, everything'll come your way. The next thing they're all dead, and there's nobody to complain to, even. Was it selfish to think of one's career at a time like this? No, he told himself. It was all he knew. The Patrol was all that mattered!

He did some rapid calculation. They were far off the interplanetary travel lanes; their fuel supply was down to a single can of kerosene; food for perhaps 2 days remained. As he listened to Ugh tuning his violin, scarcely audible over the squeakings and squealings that filled the spaceship, he realized that the only