Billy Jones sat in the office of the repair shop, cigarette dangling from his lip, pouring smoke into his watery eye.
"Never saw anything like it in my life," he declared. "How he made that ship go at all with half the plates ripped off is way beyond me."
The dungareed mechanic sighted along the toes of his shoes, planted comfortably on the desk.
"Let me tell you, mister," he declared, "the solar system never has known a pilot like him ... never will again. He brought his ship down here with the instruments knocked out. Dead reckoning."
"Wrote a great piece about him," Billy said. "How he died in the best tradition of space. Stuff like that. The readers will eat it up. The way that ship let go he didn't have a chance. Seemed to go out of control all at once and went weaving and bucking almost into Saturn. Then blooey ... that's the end of it. One big splash of flame."
The mechanic squinted carefully at his toes. "They're still out there, messing around," he said, "But they'll never find him. When that ship blew up he was scattered halfway out to Pluto."
The inner lock swung open ponderously and a spacesuited figure stepped in.
They waited while he snapped back his helmet.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said Oliver Meek.
They stared, slack-jawed.