Crup had to joggle me twice. He was holding out the completed documents.

With a feeling I was putting my own seal on my own death warrant, I pushed my identoplate against the paper.

Tug Onehad just become the mission ship for Mission Earth! And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. Not right here anyway.

Heller was over by my airbus. My driver appeared to have breakfasted well on supplies in back. He was looking at Heller with a keen eagerness while the combat engineer gave him some very exact instructions. What was Heller telling him? Apparently there was something not entirely clear for Heller whipped out a notebook and wrote something very rapidly on it, tore out the sheet and handed it over. I was about to interrupt what might be a violation of security but before I reached them, Heller handed him some money. My driver, without even asking permission from me, took off. Oh, well. I'd grill him later.

The Commander had gotten on the old watchman's triwheeler. Heller went over and they shook hands and I heard the tail end of Crup's farewell. ". . . if you know what you're doing. Remember you promised to fix her up. Well, if I never see you again, good luck anyway." I shuddered. Crup backed the triwheeler to a safe distance and sat there to watch our departure.

Heller sort of hazed me into the ship the way they do animals that have gotten out of the pasture. He got me up the ladders and into the flight deck. There was still only his own beamlight and the dust motes made it look like muddy water. I could hear old Atty banging and swearing in the auxiliary engine room just below us. He seemed to be having a lot of trouble and must be using a sledgehammer to fix it.

There were two gravity flight chairs; Heller pressed me gently down into one of them. The dust clouds absolutely geysered. "Now this is the star navigator's seat you're in and we won't be going to any stars just yet. I'll be sitting right over there in the local maneuvering seat. We don't have time to unseal the ports and all the view-screens are around the other seat, but don't worry just because you can't see anything." He was buckling clasp-straps around me. The dust was horrible. I began to cough and tried to sit up to cough better but he just shoved me back. "Now this is a tug," he said when he had finished. "A tug is the quickest maneuvering ship ever built. Don't lift your head out of those pads or you could snap your neck. A tug can move sideways, up, down, back and forward in the flash of an eye. They have to be able to, so as to position themselves around battleships. So don'tlift your head! Even on auxiliary drives, these things can be deadly fast. Understand?" All I understood was that I was choking to death on dust.

If he was so careful to tuck me in, how come he simply went over and perched on the edge of the local maneuvering chair?

The banging still went on in the nearest engine room. Then old Atty yelled, "You got power there yet?" Heller took his finger and ran it along a huge line of switches like a musician makes a run up the keyboard of an instrument. "Everything on. No lights!" More swearing from the engine room. Then, "(Bleep) it, Jet, we'll just have to run her on emergency lighting!" A feeble glow came on. The dust flying around made it look like green soup.

"I got the (bleeped) rods in," shouted Atty. Two more huge bangs. "I think the throttles will move now.

Let me get strapped down here where I can reach 'em." A long spell of coughing: must be dusty down there, too!

Jet said, "Let me see. Been three years since I touched a tug's controls." He was perched on the edge of the chair looking at what must be two thousand switches. He yelled, "You all set, Atty?"

"Set as I'll ever be."

"Give me power and local control." There was a shudder throughout the tug as Atty engaged the engines.

Heller looked thoughtfully over the array. "Hey, the viewscreens came on. What do you know." He hit a switch.

My hair rose. The inference was that he had been about to fly this blind!

But for all my fears, Tug Onerose smoothly into the sky. I felt Heller fumbling at my tunic pocket. He was fishing out my identoplate. He cleared us for the Apparatus base and transmitted my identoplate and I felt him putting it back in my pocket.

I should have known he was up to something else but at the time, frankly, I was too scared of this tug and too choked with dust. Later I would realize that all he had to do at this moment was to fly to a Fleet base, turn me in and expose the whole Apparatus. But it wasn't until much later in that day that I found out he had his own personal plans.

The tug's communication system worked and he had a mild argument with the Apparatus base concerning the readiness of a trundle dolly to land on. Once more he had out my identoplate and he got his way.

We got there so quickly that he had to skyhang a couple minutes until they had the trundle dolly in position. Then I felt us plummeting down. We must have been quite high. It made me feel queasy. It sent dust up in clouds! I began to choke. And then I thought, oh, wait until I get you on the ground in Apparatus territory: you'll certainly hear about this day's work, Jettero Heller. And I had no more than thought that than I became painfully sick at my stomach. I wasn't throwing up but almost.

We were down!

Heller unbuckled me. He swung down the ladder and out. I followed him slowly and painfully. I emerged into the midmorning sunlight. We were at the Apparatus base all right. There loomed Tug Oneon the trundle dolly in all its awful ugliness.

Heller had the ear of the landing master and the signal sticks began to wag. The trundle dolly rolled ponderously back through the door of the hangar, going under cover. Tug One'sweight was so great it made the dolly sag.

I was still coughing and wheezing and trying not to actually vomit. I didn't follow closely what was going on for a while. I just leaned up against the window of the inside hangar office and tried to get myself back together. If this was a sample of Tug Onetravel, I wondered sadly how we would ever get to Earth – with me still alive, that is!

But Heller was all bounce. You would have thought he had just been presented with a feudal dukedom. He got the trundle dolly under the crane and then got the crane master to engage his hook just right into the big steel loops on Tug One'sback and with Heller's careful supervision, lifted the ship into the air. What a strong crane!

They got the trundle dolly out from under it and Heller showed them where to put some steadying chocks to make a cradle. And then with a swoop the crane laid Tug Oneon its belly into the chocks. She was now in normal flight position, horizontal, a common enough practice. The crane disengaged.

The hangar chief went over to Heller. Like all Apparatus personnel he was not a very pleasant fellow – mostly scars and bluster. "You're taking up one of the best places in the hangar," he said.

"I want a cleaning team," said Heller. "A very big one, all the men you've got."

"A what?" roared the hangar chief. Believe me, the last thing they had in the Apparatus was a cleaning team.

"I want it finished by midafternoon," said Heller.

The hangar chief looked like he was going to slug Heller. It was obvious that he was thinking, who the blazes is this bird in a racing suit, giving me my orders, me! here in my own hangar.

Heller said, "What did you say your name was?" The hangar chief roared, "Stipe, that's who! And I ..." Heller reached out to shake his hand.

The hangar chief took it, probably intending to do an arm-pull-hit routine. He suddenly froze. As he let go of Heller's hand he looked down and I caught a flash of gold paper.