INSTEAD OF sleeping after his trick for now Helmuth knew that he was really afraid he sat up in the reading chair in his cabin. The illuminated microfilmed pages of a book flicked by across the surface of the wall opposite him, timed precisely to the reading rate most comfortable for him, and he had several weeks' worry conserved alcohol and smoke rations for ready consumption.

But Helmuth let his mix go flat and did not notice the book, which had turned itself on, at the page where M had abandoned it last, when he had fitted himself into the chair. Instead, he listened to the radio.

There was always a great deal of ham radio activity in the Jovian system. The conditions were good for it, since there was plenty of power available, few impeding atmosphere layers and those thin, no Heaviside layers, and few official and no commercial channels with which the hams could interfere.

And there were plenty of people scattered about the satellites who needed the sound of a voice anybody know whether or not the senators are coming here? Doc Barth put in a report a while back on a fossil plant he found here, at least he thinks it was a plant. Maybe they'd like a look at it."

"It's the Bridge team they're coming to see." A strong voice, and the impression of a strong transmitter wavering in and out to the currents of an atmosphere; that would be Sweeney, on Ganymede. "Sorry to throw the wet blanket, boys, but I don't think the senators'll be interested in our rockballs for their own lumpy selves. They're only scheduled to stay here three days."

Helmuth thought grayly: Then they'll stay on Callisto only one.

"Is that you, Sweeney? Where's the Bridge tonight?"

"Dillon's on duty," a very distant transmitter said. "Try to raise Helmuth, Sweeney."

"Helmuth, Helmuth, you gloomy beetlegooser! Come in, Helmuth1"

"Sure, Bob, come in and dampen us a little. We're feeling cheerful."

Sluggishly, Helmuth reached out to take the mike, from where it lay clipped to one arm of the chair. But before he had completed the gesture, the door to his room swung open.

Eva came in.

She said: "Bob, I want to tell you something."

"His voice is changing!" the voice of the Callisto operator said. "Sweeney, ask him what he's drinking!"

Helmuth cut the radio out. The girl was freshly dressed in so far as anybody dressed in anything on Jupiter V and Helmuth wondered why she was prowling the decks at this hour, halfway between her sleep period and her trick. Her hair was hazy against the light from the corridor, and she looked less mannish than usual. She reminded him a little of the way she had looked when they had been lovers, before the Bridge had come to bestride his bed instead. He put the memory aside.