Part 2

"_Not brake?_" Gladney screamed and sat bolt upright. Nurse Gray jumped for him. "Are you crazy, you skinny rat?" Gray secured a hold on his shoulders and forced him down. "You gotta brake! Don't you understand that? You have to, you vacuum-skull!" Gray was pleading with him to shut-up like a good fellow. He appealed to her. "He's gotta brake! Make him!"

"He has a good point there, Rat," she spoke up. "What about this half-way line?"

He turned to her with a weary ghost of the old smile on his face. "We passed line. Three days ago, maybe." A shrug of shoulders.

"Passed!" Gray and Gladney exclaimed in unison.

"You catch on quick," Rat nodded. "This six day, don't you know?"

Gladney sank back, exhausted. The nurse crept over to the pilot. "Getting your figures mixed, aren't you?"

Rat shook his head and said nothing.

"But Roberds said eight days, and he--"

"--he on Mars. I here. Boss nuts, too sad. He drive, it be eight days. Now only six." He cast a glance at Judith and found her eyes closed. "Six days, no brake. No."

"I see your point, and appreciate it," Gray cut in. "But now what? This deceleration business ... there is a whole lot I don't know, but some things I do!"

Rat refused the expected answer. "Land tonight, I think. Never been to Earth before. Somebody meet us, I think."

"You can bet your leather boots somebody will meet us!" Gladney cried. Gray turned to him. "The Chief'll have the whole planet waiting for _you_!" He laughed with real satisfaction. "Oh yes, Rat, they'll be somebody waiting for us all right." And then he added: "If we land."

"Oh, we land." Rat confided, glad to share a secret.

"Yeah," Gladney grated. "But in how many little pieces?"

"I've never been to Earth before. Nice, I think." Patti Gray caught something new in the tone and stared at him. Gladney must have noticed it, too.

The Centaurian moved sideways and pointed. Gray placed her eyes in the vacated position.

"Earth!" she shouted.

"Quite. Nice. Do me a favor?"

"Just name it!"

"Not drink long time. Some water?"

Gray nodded and went to the faucet. The drumming seemed remote, the tension vanished. She was an uncommonly long time in returning, at last she appeared beside him, outstretched hands dry.

"There isn't any left, Rat."

Rat batted his tired eyes expressively. "Tasted punk," he grinned at her.

She sat down on the floor suddenly and buried her face.

"Rat," she said presently, "I want to ask you something, rather personal? Your ... name. 'Rat'? Roberds told me something about your record. But ... please tell me, Rat. You didn't know the attack was coming, did you?"

He grinned again and waggled his head at her. "No. Who tell Rat?" Suddenly he was deadly serious as he spoke to her. "Rat a.w.o.l., go out to help sick man alone in desert. Rat leave post. Not time send call through. Come back with man, find horrible thing happen."

"But why didn't you explain?"

He grinned again. "Who believe? Sick man die soon after."

Gladney sat up. He had heard the conversation between the two. "You're right, Rat. No one would have believed you then, and no one will now. You've been safe enough on Mars, but the police will nab you as soon as you get out of the ship."

"They can't!" cried Patti Gray. "They can't hurt him after what he's done now."

The Centaurian grinned in a cynical way.

"Police not get me, Gladney. Gladney's memory damn punk, I think. Earth pretty nice place, maybe. But not for Rat."

Gladney stared at him for minutes. Then: "Say, I get it ... you're--"

"Shut up!" Rat cut him off sharply. "You talk too much." He cast a glance at Nurse Gray and then threw a meaning look at Gladney.

* * * * *

Gladney subsided. Patti Gray noted with dawning wonder that his face had lost the loathing and anger he had previously held toward the outlaw pilot.

"Look. Sea!" Rat said a few moments later. Gray was in her hammock. She twisted over as he moved bony shoulders aside to let her see through the vision port. A startlingly brief glimpse of glistening waters shot past, reflecting a dancing moonpath. A continent whirled into place on the plate. The skies were clear of other craft.

"Travelling fast!" she warned. "I hope you know what you're doing." Another body of water shot past them beneath. "That must be the Pacific. Where are you going to set down?"

"The ocean." Rat didn't turn his attention away from the plate. "Gladney you got bad memory too much. That's why we passed half-way line full speed! Sea water good brake, stop us hundred miles!"

Gladney flopped back. "May I be kicked to death! Of course! I've heard of it being done by stunt pilots. But Rat, are you sure you can do it? I mean, can you land us without killing us all?"

"Oh yes," but Rat was grimly serious. "I can all right, but...."

"... but what?"

"Ever see little boy skipping stones across water?" His hand shot out and described a series of violent ricocheting motions. "Like that? We land that way, I think. _Splat-splat!_ First splat knock us all ... all ... what you say?"

"Knock us out?" Gladney supplied.

Rat shrugged. Gray caught his eyes.

"Goodnight, Rat," she smiled at him. "When I wake up, I want to see you again. You won't be in jail for awhile, not until the hospital releases you, and perhaps by that time...."

"All no bother, please. I liked you Patti Gray. But your memory pretty punk too. Forget your Fleet training, I think. Yes! But Patti ..." he stopped, helpless.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry about something. I kicked you."

"Rat, please forget it. I won't forgive you for there is nothing to forgive you for!" She smiled at him, winked once and closed her eyes. "Goodnight everyone."

They felt the nose dip as Rat dropped toward the moonlit sea. The ocean rushed up. The ship struck with titanic force, blasting through the white-caps, metal crumpling from the monstrous dive. And then all consciousness blacked out for those on board.

* * * * *

Patti Gray awoke, pressed the button under her pillow for a nurse, smiled about the clean hospital room.

Gladney was waiting to see her. He wheeled himself in and stopped the chair beside her bed.

"Hello. Feel human again?"

"Do I?" She laughed. "Gladney, I'm going to stay right here the rest of my life!"

"Yeah ... that's what I said yesterday. But today I'm itching to get back up yonder." He dug a thumb at the sky.

"Is Judith all right?"

"Sure. She wants to see you. Frankly, Miss Gray," he lowered his voice, "I expected that first 'splat' of Rat's would kill her."

Gray shivered. "I have a hazy memory of that landing. How did we do it?"

"Easy. A coast-guard cutter saw us and picked us up about ten miles out."

"Gladney," she said quickly, "you've got to help me clear Rat. We've got to ... why Gladney, you don't mean they got him...?"

"_They_ didn't get him. _Earth_ did. Don't you remember what he said about Earth being a nice place for us? Centaurians can't endure Earth's gravity and atmosphere; the Centaurian Embassy is very specially built, and all Centaurians come to Earth in what are virtually fish bowls.

"Rat was beginning to die even as we dove for the water."

Patti Gray stared at him a moment in frozen horror, then buried her face in the pillow.

"Some day, he will be remembered, Miss Gray," Gladney whispered. "Some day, after all the bitterness over Ganymede is forgotten, they'll remember _why_ Rat left his post, and they'll remember how he drove."