"All right. I'll do my best. But something will remain here, Kurt, even after the explosion. We'll be safe, in a way, here." "That argument has already been used, by me, to get the others back to you. You and I know, Sam, that hell won't hold a hat to the American continent if that whizzer hits." "All right," West repeated. "Ah! I'm on the rocket as a target." "Good!" Zen repressed every muscular tremor everywhere in his body. Somewhere there was jubilation, a sensed but not tangible vibration that he could not locate. He concentrated on the jubilation. A layer of smoke floated down from the ceiling like a descending death-pall. The guard had gotten to his feet. He had picked up his rifle and was staring around the room seeking either an explanation for what had happened, or a target. To him, which he got didn't matter. His eyes came to focus on the lean colonel with the bandaged fingers. That uniform did not belong here. The guard raised his rifle. "Good luck, Kurt," West's voice whispered across the space between two continents. As the gun exploded in his face, Kurt Zen felt his body vibrate into what seemed to be nothing. Again the terror wrenched at his soul. Again he experienced the mind-compelling agony of this incredible type of space flight. This time he did not mind these terrors. Somewhere in his mind was jubilation. Wondering if it was the forerunner of death, he continued to concentrate on that. Dimly, as if from some other space, or some other time, he was aware of a roar. The rocket swam into existence ten feet away from him. He was outside it, in airless space. West had made a miscalculation. Agony seared every cell in his body. Pain clamped at his throat like hands trying to choke him to death. "Oops! I made a mistake," he heard West gasp. He was moving with the rocket, on a parallel course. West had matched course and velocity but he had not achieved his exact aiming point. Error in the instrument? Human mistake? Who knew? Who cared? _Click!_ Like a vast ocean of warm, pulsing, sure power, the race mind came into Kurt Zen. It existed here in space, too! He had never thought of that. In what little thinking he had had time to do, he had considered it as a super special sort of field which possessed intelligence but which was limited to the surface of the planet. Here in space, it sustained life in him. He did not know how this was done, this was one of the mysteries which must be left to the future to solve--if there was a future other than the mud flats. It felt to him as if a vast tidal current was flowing into his body. _Click!_ He was in the rocket! The smell of overheated oil fouled his nose. As he tried to move, he bumped his head. He was in a narrow passage. Ahead was a control panel with automatic devices. He began to crawl in that direction.