The rockets growled and roared outside.  The ship lifted.  Johnny Simms came storming up from below.

“My trophy!” he cried indignantly.  “I want my trophy!”

Cochrane looked up impatiently from the screen.

“What trophy?”

“The thing I shot!” cried Johnny Simms fiercely.  “I want to have it mounted!  Nobody else ever killed anything like that!  I want it!”

The ship surged upward more strongly.  Cochrane said coldly: 

“It’s too late now.  Get out.  I’m busy.”

He returned his eyes to the screen.  Johnny Simms raced for the stairs.  A little later Cochrane heard shoutings in the control-room.  But he was too busy to inquire.

The ship drifted—­with all the queasy sensation of no-weight—­and lifted again, and then there was a fairly long period of weightlessness.  At such times Holden would be greenish and sick and tormented by space-sickness.  Which might be good for him at this particular time.  For a long time, it seemed, there were alternating periods of lift and free fall, which in themselves were disturbing.  Once the free fall lasted until Cochrane began to feel uneasy.  But then the rockets roared once more and boomed loudly as if the ship were leaving the planet altogether.

But Cochrane was talking business.  In part he bluffed.  In part, quite automatically, he demanded much more than he expected to get, simply because it is the custom in business not to be frank about anything.  Whatever he asked, the other man would offer less.  So he asked too much, and the other man offered too little, each knowing in advance very nearly on what terms they would finally settle.  Considering the cost of beam-phone time to Lunar City, not to mention the extension to the stars, it was absurd, but it was the way business is done.

Presently Cochrane called Babs and Alicia and had them witness a tentative agreement, which had to be ratified by a board of directors of a corporation back on Earth.  That board would jump at it, but the stipulation for possible cancellation had to be made.  It was mumbo-jumbo.  Cochrane felt satisfyingly competent at handling it.

While the formalities were in progress, the ship surged and fell and swayed and surged again.  Cochrane said ruefully: 

“I hate to ask you to work under conditions like this, Babs.”

Babs grinned.  He flushed a little.

“I know!  When you were working for me I wasn’t considerate.”

“Who am I working for now?”

“Us,” said Cochrane.  Then he looked guiltily at Alicia.  He felt embarrassment at having said anything in the least sentimental before her.  Considering Johnny Simms, it was not too tactful.  Her cheek, where it had been red, now showed a distinct bruise.  He said:  “Sorry, Alicia—­about Johnny.”

“I got into it myself,” said Alicia.  “I loved him.  He isn’t really bad.  If you want to know, I think he simply decided years ago that he wouldn’t grow up past the age of six.  He was a rich man’s spoiled little boy.  It was fun.  So he made a career of it.  His family let him.  I”—­she smiled faintly, “I’m making a career of taking care of him.”