I spun on Sparks, angry. Jurnegan had told us to humor Moran, help him to a complete recovery. I didn't approve of this, not a little bit. I snapped, "That'll do, Sparks! Good Lord, man—What's the matter, Moran?"

For suddenly his face had paled, his eyes widened in horror, and he was backing away from me. He thrust out a trembling hand, gasped hoarsely, "Have a care, Brait! 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain—'!"

Then he fled; his running footsteps clattered down the ramp, and the echoes were strangely disturbing. Sparks stared after him, then made a circular motion at his temple.

"Nuts!" he said. "Crazy as a loon, Lootenant."

Oh, he was an odd one, that Moran. Those next days are somehow garbled in my mind. They were so full of incident that now, looking back upon them, I can hardly distinguish between that which actually was, and that which an active imagination conjured for me out of fancy.

This I do know—it was the worst trip I've ever experienced in the Antigone or any other ship. Something was always wrong. Lt. Russ Bartlett, whose mind is as accurate as the cogs of a computing machine, discovered to his dismay that he had made an error in calculation; that at our present rate of speed we would miss Earth entirely and plunge Sunward at a rate that would destroy us all. He discovered that by sheer accident, and just in time to scream a hasty, "Cut hypos!" to the engine room, else I wouldn't be here to tell it. Then there was that mysterious occurrence in the galley. Our cook had a pet cat, and if it weren't for his habit of feeding the pussy before he fed the crew, half of us would be stiff now. Because the cat slopped up its dinner and forthwith proceeded to give up all nine of its lives simultaneously. Ptomaine, from faulty food tins. The first time such a thing had happened in more than forty years!

You couldn't say Moran was behind either of these near-disasters. For I was dogging his footsteps; I'll take my oath he was not involved. Physically, that is. But they say a Jonah's curse works even though the Jonah takes no actual part.

Oh, he was an odd one, that Moran. For instance, the time Sparks' selenium plate blew out. It was Moran who got permission to use the machine shop, construct a substitute out of a uranoid-steel atmochamber. We used that freak audio throughout the trip, then replaced it with a standard one when we reached Earth. Like dopes! Because two years later that screwball First Mate of the Saturn "invented" a uranium time-speech-trap exactly like the one Moran made us. He earned a quarter million credits from it. Imagine!

Then there was the time, as we were approaching the Lunar outpost, that our calculating machine jammed. Lieutenant Bartlett and Cap McNeally were in a dither trying to figure the approach velocity. It's a fifteen-minute job for the machine; a six-hour job for a man's brain. But Moran, who happened by, glanced casually at the declension chart, said, "Cut to forty-three at 3.05 Earth Standard, Captain. Maintain full speed for point three five parsecs, alter declension to north one, loft seven, fire fore jets twice—"