go."

Her lustrous dark eyes searched his face intently. "How long must I wait for an answer, Bill?"

"Can you wait until Thursday—three days?" Time enough to thresh things out with Tom.

"I guess I can," Margo said, touching him with an inviting glance, "but do I have to wait that long before I see you again?"

Bill grinned and shook his head in wonder. "My lord, what persistence! I got an idea any visiting would not be entirely social. Somewhere along the line business would rear its shaggy head. Okay, how about dinner at the Wedgewood Room tomorrow night?"

"Wonderful!"

Later at his own floor to his surprise he found Tom pacing the corridor. In a strained voice he said, "The clerk said a gentleman—"

Tom came back in a conciliatory tone, "And I don't fit the description, eh? Well, anyway, Bill, we got things to talk over. How about it?"

Bill shrugged noncommittally, unlocked his door and the two entered. Perched on the arm of a chair, Bill lighted a cigarette and pulled deeply of it.

"Well, what is it?" He glanced coolly at his brother sitting with his left leg dangling over the arm of his chair.

Tom cleared his throat and said, "I—er, came to see how we're stacking up, Bill. After all we got a big show on our hands and the whole world is waiting for the curtain to go up. But we can't be squabbling between ourselves when we go on stage. Let's settle matters now and get on with our job—after all we both got a lot at stake in the company."

Bill studied the end of his cigarette a long moment. "I guess you might as well count me out, Tom. I'm quitting the show."

Furrows appeared above Tom's brows. "Quitting! And after all you've put into the venture? Bill, have you gone nuts?" He stopped a moment. Then he said, "Oh, I guess I see the light. Christy, eh? Well, Bill, honest—and I really mean this—you can have all the profits of the trip if I'm guilty of trying to take Christy away from you. You've got the wrong slant on things."

Bill shrugged, saying, "It's not that—and I still am not convinced—it's just that I'm considering another proposition."

Tom got to his feet in agitation, looking down at Bill incredulously. "My God, Bill, you sure have changed! What about all those bull sessions we had reading and rereading the George Staker philosophy of free enterprise? The world needs an object lesson to show how far it has strayed from those first wonderful days of the Atomic Age. We are heirs, Bill by special franchise, Old George saw the shape of things to come pretty clearly, and it's up to us to carry out his vision of things as they should be."

Bill ground out his cigarette in a tray. His underlip crowded out stubbornly. "I'm not going."

For a moment Tom stared hard at Bill, and a heavy singing silence lay between them. Then Tom strode to the door and opened it. "All right, Bill—you and I are through!"

The door slammed. For awhile Bill sat looking at it, wondering why the slammed door reminded him of looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and telling himself "I'm scared—scared as hell. And if I don't get hold of myself, I'm through—washed up!"

he next day when he was busily dressing, the ultrafax popped out the breakfast edition.

"Space Bird takes off for Beta Quadrant. Tom Staker gambles all."

Bill stared at the pictures of the rocket climbing savagely at the head of a column of fire. The crazy, stubborn fool. Going it alone, risking his neck and everybody else's aboard. Well, let him go out there and break his blasted neck on the Asteroid Belt.

For the next three days Bill saw much of Margo. She was the most exciting thing he had ever discovered, and he indulged her laughingly when she took to speaking of his position in Intercontinental Lines as an accomplished fact.