ED PARMAN, BLACK-HAIRED assistant to Black Tom, jumped hastily to his feet. “Good gravy, he’s right. You sit down, Joe, I’ll finish my pudding in the corner.”
Joe said: “Sit down. I’m used to discomfort. I’m a wooder.” He grinned. Parman grinned back, started in on his pudding.
Joe, the men were to notice in the coming days, seemed to make a point of never eating with the bunch after that. But he did it so smoothly, it wasn’t offensive....
Venus, in the days that followed, grew from a tiny yellow-green flame, that Bairn, the pilot, had noticed in the first hours of the flight, to a white globe, just hinting a tint of blue, that began to fill the heavens before him.
Joe, on an off hour from the power room, sat quietly in the co-pilot’s chair, drinking in the planet. He and Bairn, usuall
