He whirled the helpless spaceman like a bag of feathers and slung him
through the air. The force of the action only flattened Koa against the
ceiling, but the hapless spaceman shot forward head first and landed with
a clang against the bulkhead. He didn't hit hard enough to break any
bones, but he would carry a bump on his head for a day or two.

Koa's voice floated after him. "Great Cosmos! I sure am sorry, spaceman.
I guess I don't know my own strength." He kicked away from the ceiling,
landing accurately at Rip's side. He added in a hard voice all could
hear, "They sure are a nice gang, these spacemen. They never say anything
about Planeteers."

No spaceman answered, but Koa's meaning was clear. No spaceman had better
say anything about the Planeteers! Rip saw that the deputy commander and
the safety officer had appeared not to notice the incident. Technically,
there was no reason for an officer to take action. It had all been an
"accident." He smiled. There was a lot he had to learn about dealing with
spacemen, a lot Koa evidently knew very well indeed.

Suddenly he began to feel weight. The ship was going into rotation. The
feeling increased until he felt normally heavy again. There was no other
sensation, even though the space cruiser was now spinning on its axis
through space at unaltered speed. The centrifugal force produced by the
spinning gave them an artificial gravity.

Now that he thought about it, _Brennschluss_ had come pretty early. The
trip apparently was going to be a short one. _Brennschluss_--funny, he
thought, how words stay on in a language, even after their original
meaning is changed. _Brennschluss_ was German for "burn out." It was