Gene Drummond felt a tingle of anticipation course through his being as he stepped through the open airlock of his small scout ship and for the first time in more than a year felt the soft soil of Mother Earth under his booted feet. He stood for a moment, hungrily drinking in the noise and clamor of New York Spaceport. Around and about him the shouts and curses of bustling, grease-soaked mechanics and husky stevedores acted as a balm to his taut nerves. To return to this, after fourteen grueling