I was fed twice a day--or something like it. It was almost time for my next meal, but that wasn't the important time. It was the helpless week behind me, the week in which Thorsten's kidnaped technicians had had time to assemble the ship's engines. The test flight was due, and after that the production of engines for the other ships in Thorsten's fleet. If I was going to do anything, I had to do it now. I dragged myself up the side of the cell, leaving meat from my fingers on the rough stone. I staggered over to the wall beside the door and waited. Time went by--hours or minutes--and a sound of feet came down the tunnel leading to my cell. I couldn't use my back muscles, but I tensed them now, feeling stitches give way. Tumblers clicked, and the door was opened. I kicked it shut and sprang, wrapping my hands around a dimly seen throat, a thin and soft neck. "Ash!" Pat's voice was half-choked under my grip. "Pat!" I opened my hands, and she stumbled free. But not for long, because an instant later she was pressed against me again, her mouth over mine. * * * * * We stood together in the darkness and in hunger. Finally, she moved her lips away. "Ash, Ash, you can stand!" She was sobbing with relief. "Yeah--I'm on my feet." "Can you fight?" "Nothing bigger than you," I said. "What's going on?" "He's crazy, Ash. That plan of his--I'd never heard it before. All he told me was that he was going to take humanity out to the stars--he said he didn't trust Earth government to do it." "Yeah. I know. For that dream, I would have done what you did, too." "I didn't love him, Ash. He--I don't know, he _was_ his dream, somehow, and in spite of it all, he was a better, stronger man than anyone I ever knew. Except you, Ash." That was good enough. That was good enough to give her everything I had or could get. And that made my spot even worse. It wasn't just she that was going to get hurt--but she was the most important one of them all. I couldn't even stay with her, here in the cell. But she knew that too, and there was more to her coming here than that. "Ash--they've finished assembling the drive in your ship. They've finished repairs on her bow, too. They're going to run the tests in a few hours. Everybody's sleeping, except for the maintenance crew, and they're scattered through the base. Ash--I think we can get out of here. If we don't run into any guards, we can make it to the airlock. There'll be a few suits in a locker there. We can make a run for the ship." Her voice was urgent, and full of hope, and bitterness for the desertion of a dream--a sick, tainted dream, but her dream for so many years at Thorsten's side. And I knew, for the first time in weeks, that Earth had a chance. I knew, too, that Pat and I.... I could have kissed her then. But I had to be a damned fool. I didn't.