the ladder into the nose of the ship and sank to the floor. Harold was twiddling with some knobs mounted on the dashboard of the junked car.

"Boy!" Orville pulled out his handkerchief again and swabbed his forehead. He tried to wipe the grime from his hands. "And I've never even been in an airplane!"

"Me either." Harold pounded on the dashboard. A meter didn't seem to be working. "There ... guess I can open her up a little."

"Hey, wait! Take me back!"

Harold moved a knob an eighth of a turn. He switched on the scope and waited for it to warm up. He took off his glasses and wiped them, squinting at Orville with that one bad eye.

"Turn it around and take me back!"

"But I can't, Orville." Harold put on the glasses and looked into the scope. "It's working!"

"I demand it! You've made me late for the office as it is!"

"Sure looks different from the map," Harold said. "Must be the East Coast. There's Florida sticking out there."

He snapped off the scope and sat opposite Orville. He opened the thermos and poured coffee into the cap.

"Been so busy, didn't have my breakfast." He held out the cap to Orville. "I take mine without sugar."

Orville shook his head. "Do I understand—"

"Ugh! It's hot!" Harold put down the coffee and rummaged in some brown paper bags. "Should be some glazed doughnuts.... Shoot! Bet I left them in the kitchen!"

Orville faced him firmly. "You've shown me it'll fly. I believe you. Now I give you one more chance—take me back!"

"But I can't!" Harold protested.

"There are laws about this sort of thing, my friend. This is abduction. Kidnapping. You know what the penalty is for that?"

"Well, gee, I didn't mean to take you along, Orville. You hit that switch—"

"It's criminal negligence, leaving a switch out there like that where it could be hit by accident!"

"Had to put it there so I could reach up from below and work it."

Orville balled his fists and stood squarely. Funny—it was no trouble at all, standing and walking around. If he hadn't seen those clouds, and the landscape sinking away, he'd swear the two of them were still in Harold's back yard.

"Do you take me back," he said, "or do I have to break every—"

"But I can't!" Harold grasped his wrist pleadingly. "I got her set up in a sequence. If I tried to change the sequence now, why—" He shuddered. "I haven't got any idea what might happen!"

Orville sat back down.

"I'm sorry." The weak way Harold said it made Orville feel worse than ever.

"Me! Trapped up here in this thing with you!" Orville said bitterly. "You can't even drive a car! You're just about the worst driver I know!"

"I know," Harold admitted. "But this is safer than a car. Besides, out where we're going, there'll be no traffic problem." He gave his inane giggle. "Far as I know, there's no one else at all!"

"And the neighborhood back there. Probably all blown to pieces. Polly. The house. My car! I got complete coverage on it, but who ever heard of a car wrecked by a spaceship? When we get back, if my insurance doesn't cover it, I'll sue you!"

"There's nothing hurt at all," Harold said. "Unless someone had his hand on the ship when we took off. I'd planned to have 'em stand back."

Orville closed his eyes. Something was crossing and crisscrossing inside him like two rings tossed back and forth by jugglers. It was not painful, but it was disturbing. Something must be going wrong. He didn't trust Harold's mechanical ability. In the past ten years, Harold had been fired from a couple of filling station jobs because of blunders, once for leaving the plug out of a crank case, and once for botching up a flat tire repair.

"Running kind of rough, isn't she?" Orville said. "What makes this little—" He circled his hands sickly in front of his stomach.

Harold closed his eyes and made similar circles. "Oh, that's this counter-grav of mine. You see, the gravitation of the Earth—"

"Can't you do anything about it?" Orville was in no mood to listen to one of Harold's lectures.

"I could move her over so we couldn't feel it, but it would be shaking the ship then. Might tear it apart."

"Won't it tear us apart?"

"I don't think so. We got more give to us than the ship has." Harold was able to drink the coffee now. "No, I don't think I've done a bad job on this. First time a machine is built, you're bound to run into a few bugs. But this is working, so far, even better than I expected."

"Yeah," Orville had to admit, "it ain't bad—for a guy with no mechanical ability whatever."

II

Harold had opened the ship up a little more, and according to him, they were now moving eighteen thousand miles per hour or so, approximately. Orville had tried to drink some water from a milk bottle, but the sight of the water, bouncing in rhythm to the invisible circles in his stomach, had given him nausea.

Harold knelt on the floor, smoothing out a soiled sheet of paper. In the center was a small circle, labeled in Harold's sloppy handwriting "Earth." An arrow showed the direction of the Earth's motion around the Sun. Outside this was a larger circle labeled "Orbit of Moon." A spiral reached out from the Earth to intersect the Moon's orbit.

"Had the darnedest time drawing this," Harold said. "Got it out of an astronomy book. Let's Look at the Stars by someone. Thirty-five cents. Let's see now."

He wet the point of the pencil and made a mark. He scratched his head and erased the mark and made another.

"Harold, another thing," said Orville. "I weigh around one ninety-five. Won't that take a lot of extra gas?"

"Nope. Doesn't matter if you weigh a ton. According to my counter-grav principle—"

"Won't it get stuffy in here with two of us?"

"Why, I have some oxygen. That welding place in back of the garage where I work—got a tank off them. Had to pay cash, but I can turn in the empty when we get back."

"You sure one tank'll be enough?"

"Well—" Harold flushed guiltily. "You won't say anything about this? I took along several extra tanks, just to make sure. I wasn't stealing. You see, I figure I might make some money out of this thing."

"Say!" Orville hadn't thought of this angle before. "You really could."

"And there should be plenty of food. Let me see now." He fished in his pocket and brought out a piece of brown wrapping paper. "I'll run over the list and make sure I didn't forget something." He glanced up sharply. "Relax! Make yourself to home. And the little boy's room is down there." He squinted at the paper. "Water. There's plenty. Six family-size cans pork and beans. Charged 'em." He ran through the list, mumbling, then looked up brightly. "Yep. Looks all right. Nope, there's one thing I forgot. Stickum plaster! Doggone. Never go anywhere without my first aid kit. Never know what's liable to happen."

"Y'know, Harold," Orville said, "I'm beginning to see some possibilities in this trip. First man on the Moon. Think of the fuss they made over Lindy and Wrong-way Corrigan. The guys who climbed Mount Everest. Why, that was nothing!"

"Course, I'm not doing this for fame. Or money, either."

"Then why are you doing it?"

Harold stared vaguely toward where the Moon would be if they could see it. "I guess ... because it's there."

"Huh! Well, don't forget I'm in on it, too."

Some time later, when the Moon first appeared on the scope, about the size of a basketball, Harold indulged in a mild spree. He opened some pineapple juice. Orville did not feel like drinking any. In fact, he felt ill.

"Space sickness," Harold said. "Lot of bread is good for that. Stuff yourself with it. Just think—back there on Earth, they're going