WHEN THE DOOR SLAMMED shut Roberds locked it. Peterson slumped in the chair.
“Do you mean that, Chief? About taking the ship yourself?”
“True enough.” Roberds cast an anxious glance at the partly closed door, lowered his voice. “It’ll cost me my job, but that girl in there has to be taken to a hospital quickly! And it’s her luck to be landed on a planet that doesn’t boast even one! So it’s Earth ... or she dies. I’d feel a lot better too if we could get Gladney to a hospital, I’m not too confident of that patching job.” He pulled a pipe from a jacket pocket. “So, might as well kill two birds with one stone ... and that wasn’t meant to be funny!”
Peterson said nothing, sat watching the door.
“Rat has the right idea,” Roberds continued, “but I had already thought of it. About the bunks a
