"That was as quick a trip as you anticipated, Father? But even so, we found it irksome. We alternated at the instrument board. Martt prepared most of the meals--beyond that and sleeping there was little to do. Except to watch for asteroids; but the mails have reported the region through there remarkably free of them this season. We saw none inside the Martian orbit closer than a million miles, which to such a low velocity as ours held no danger." Dr. Gryce asked, "The air purifiers, Brett? You had no trouble?" "No. Or very little, except just at first with the chlorate of potassium. I was telling you about passing Mars. We saw it rising slowly past us--saw it through a side window. A huge crescent, the sunlight on half its disk, but even the unlighted portion was plainly outlined. Above us was the thin crescent earth, with the sun behind it. The tongues of flame in the sun's envelope were plainer than I had ever seen them. We were falling away from the earth and sun, into the inky blackness of Space with its blazing white stars. "During all this first portion of the trip we were eager to get more quickly advanced. Beyond Neptune's orbit, with the Solar System once behind us, we would feel like explorers, even though Nogar--he holds the record, doesn't he?--went once 27,000 million miles out." Dr. Gryce put in: "His record was 27,600 million miles from our sun. At nearly five million miles an hour, which was his maximum velocity obtainable, that trip for the full return passage consumed--I think the total time was 461 days." Brett went on, "That was the record. But even to go a single light-year at that velocity would have taken Nogar around 84 years--just going out a little light-year of distance, to say nothing of getting back! And we had so many thousands of light-years to travel even to get beyond the stars. It seemed stupendous--impossible." "Naturally," said Dr. Gryce. "Impossible, of course, had you held to that size." They were directing their explanations at me. I nodded. "But you didn't stay that size?" I suggested. "No, of course not," said Brett. "But for a time, we did--I was cautious from Mars to Jupiter, Father. Nogar plunged right through the asteroid region there--plunged through at nearly his five million miles an hour velocity. I held down to three million. We kept a close watch, though Martt had a somewhat terrifying experience. Tell them, Martt."