"The point is, these disks we're building are supposed to be purely and simply a faster means of traveling around Terra than any we have now. But the man in the street, that faceless brainless little cipher, believes they're for conquering the stars. And by Judas, he's right! We're building interplanetary disks--_and we're not supposed to know it_!" The three men stared at one another. "Who's keeping it from us?" "And why?" "There are plenty of rocket projects--so what if someone wants to try a space disk instead? Why would he tell all his scientists and technicians a pack of lies? There's no need for secrecy, for God's sake!" "But--my gosh," protested Alan, "no one man could keep a thing like this from all the rest of us. There must be ten or twenty who know. And details like these, the fuel tanks and instruments, they can't be hidden from anybody!" "So where does it lead us?" "Up a narrow, dank, and ill-smelling blind alley," said Brave. "Not so bl--" * * * * * There was a detonation outside the lab; a harsh, clangorous thunderclap of a sound, like the bursting of a bomb full of wash tubs and anchor chains. The three men were dashing for the door before the reverberations had died away. A disk had crashed on the airfield. Brave and Alan and Don piled into a jeep and raced down toward it. "I didn't know they had any ready for use," Alan shouted. "Oh, yes. They haven't advertised it much, though. And this must be the first test flight. I didn't know it was coming off today." "You'd think we'd all have been invited to the takeoff. Big impressive show, faithful workers get afternoon off, and all that." "Hell," said Don, "if they're keeping the purpose of the things from us, for no good reason that I can see, they might want to keep the test flight secret too." "How can they keep it secret? It obviously had to take off in plain sight, and they couldn't shoo everyone indoors. No, I guess they just didn't give a damn about us. Underlings, unimportant servants, that's us," said Alan bitterly, with a flash prevision of the terrible idea that would soon be obsessing him. They pulled up beside the wreckage of the disk. There was no danger of explosion, due to the peculiar properties of hornethylene. The giant platter, with its raised top like a hot-dish cover and its bubble of clear crystal beneath, lay crumpled and bent, one-third of its whole edge accordioned in upon itself. Even as they came up the crystal bubble inched open; not smoothly, as it should have done, but like a damp-swollen door creaks away from its frame under heavy pressure. The pilot thrust his legs out and dropped to the ground. Alan and a dozen others ran to him. "Hi," said he. "Guess I pulped this job up right." "Good Lord, man, are you okay?"