"Calling you Starwasp calling you. This is Cragin, Space Intelligence on a CB. On your track at 900,000 your six o'clock level. Let me hear you, Miss Griffin." There wasn't any answer and he tried again. Nine was humming. "I've orders to burn you up if you refuse to acknowledge. Ack please." He tried to keep his voice flat and machine-like so he wouldn't give himself away, but he sounded like an hysterical schoolgirl compared to the voice that answered him. It was that of a woman; a woman who might have died and shriveled in the deserts a hundred years ago. * * * * * "Follow me, Patrolman, if you have the courage. Turn back if you'd rather be safe to choke your life away on the sterile place you call home. There's a lot of room beyond the Barrier, but little for men who worship merely their own perfection and stay blind to problems which they cannot solve. Or go ahead and burn me up if you think it will be of some help to you." "Starwasp!" He felt like a rank recruit. But Nine was beginning to shrill. She was goading him, challenging his courage, daring him to burn her when she knew that by so doing he'd defeat his own purpose. "You contraband? I'll give you ten seconds to answer." He was being ridiculous; had mishandled the whole thing. What the hell was the matter with him? She was stalling him, making a fool of him, until his comptometers couldn't take it any more. "There is more that is contraband where I'm going than you dream of." "Where you bound?" "The X ecliptic. Before he died, Fowler Griffin found it. He found the single machine-planet that circles within it. I expect to join him there." "Miss Griffin...." "I've told you enough. Among the people of Earth there's too much apathy already; my story would only make it worse. Follow me if you want to, burn me up or turn back otherwise. But make up your mind." "It's made up!" Cragin barked back. "I--" He wondered what she meant by the machine-planet and by the X ecliptic. That was what Kirkholland had said something about. And he wondered about the other things she said. Earth was a sterile place.... "Since I only have ten comptometers, I--" "That's all I have," came back. And, in the last analysis, he would be safe just to choke his life away.... "My ten is beginning to hum already--" "So is mine." And maybe the people of Earth were stuck on themselves just a little.... "OK, I'll follow." "You'll have to now." And they were apathetic, just sitting back, waiting, telling themselves that all had been done that was possible to do. Because they had done it. "Velocity needle's going crazy--" She didn't answer again, and Ten was screaming so he couldn't have heard her if she had. Maybe two minutes until it broke up in his face.