There was a room for Jim and me, another for Dolores and Alice, and one for Dr. Weatherby. An instrument and chart room forward, with a tower room for keeping a lookout, and a galley with a new Maxton electronic stove, fully equipped. And other rooms—a food room, and one crowded with a variety of apparatus: air purifiers, Maxton heaters and refrigerators, piping the heat and cold throughout the vehicle. There was a score of devices with which I was familiar, and another score which were totally strange. Dr. Weatherby already had the vehicle fully equipped and provisioned. With a tabulated list of its contents, he and Jim were laboriously checking the items to verify that nothing had been overlooked. “I don’t want to know how it works,” Jim had said. “Not ’til after we start. Let’s get going. That’s the main idea.” Then Alice took the list. She and Jim went from room to room. Dolores stood a moment in the corridor, as Dr. Weatherby and I started for the instrument room. “Jim! Oh Jim, where are you?” “He and Alice are farther back, Dolores,” I said. “In the galley, I think. Don’t you want to come forward with us?” “I guess not. I’ll go with Jim.” She joined them and I heard her say, “Oh, I’m glad to find you, Jim. I was a little frightened, just for a moment. I thought something was wrong here on board.” I turned and followed Dr. Weatherby to the instrument room. * * * * * We stood before an instrument board of dials and indicators, with wires running upward to a score of gleaming cylindrical tanks overhead. A table was beside us, with a switchboard less complicated in appearance than I have seen in the navigating cages of many small liners. There were chairs, a narrow leather couch across the room, and another table littered with charts and star-maps. And above it was a shelf, with one of the Grantline comptometers, the mathematical sensation of some years back. It was almost a human mathematical brain. Under its keys the most intricate problem of calculus was automatically resolved, as surely as an ancient adding machine did simple arithmetic. Dr. Weatherby began to show me the workings of the vehicle. “I need only give you the fundamentals, Leonard. Mechanically my apparatus here is fairly complicated. But those mere mechanics are not important or interesting. I could not teach you now, in so short a time, how to rectify anything which went mechanically wrong. I shall do the navigating. “Indeed, as you will see presently, there is very little navigating involved. Mostly at the start—we must only be sure we collide with nothing and disturb nothing. When once we are beyond these planets, these crowding stars, there will be little to do.” I shook my head. “The whole thing is incomprehensible, Dr. Weatherby. That flight of your little model was almost gruesome.”