Just as he reached the hatch, two figures emerged suddenly from the ship. One wore the uniform of a Space Fleet astro-navigator. The other was Adam-Two. I ran up the gangway in time to hear the navigator telling Hoppy, "I found him in the forward chart room." "Adam!" I yelled. "What are you up to now?" "I wanted to go along," he said. "I wanted to see if they were really going to the cold side of Number One Sun." I grabbed his arm and hustled him down to the mono-car. We slid clear of the dock and about half a mile away I stopped the car to watch them blast off. Adam's eyes were wide with wonderment. "What makes it go?" "Rocket motors," I said absently. I watched the ship, now just a mote disappearing in the twilight sky. And I thought, _There goes the tag end of a twenty-year dream._ That was all it had ever been; I knew that now. Just a dream, and a stupid one at that. I'd deluded myself even more than the Kids. "What's a rocket motor?" I looked at Adam. "What? What did you say?" "I said, what's a rocket motor?" "Who said anything about rocket motors?" "You did. I asked you what makes it go and you said, rocket motors." I frowned. "Forget it. Magic makes it go. Santa Claus magic." "Okay, Daddy. Sure." Something about his tone made me look sharply at him. He was grinning at me; a cynical, adult-type grin. Yesterday it would have made me furious. Today, for some crazy reason, it made me burst out laughing. I laughed for quite a long time, and then as suddenly as it began, it was over. I rumpled his hair and started the car. "Adam," I said, "take a tip from your Daddy. Stop trying to find out about things. Hang onto your dreams. Dreams are happy things, and truth is sometimes pretty ugly...." CHAPTER IV That night after Taps I told Ruth about the Council meeting and about my chat with Hoppy at the ship. She came and sat beside me and, in the age-old manner of a loyal wife, assured me that everything was going to be all right. I stood up and began prowling around the room. "It's _not_ all right. The plain and simple truth is that we've thrown away twenty years on this pipe dream. All for _nothing_!" "You don't mean that, Harry. Not for _nothing_." "The hell I don't! Remember how skeptical we were when we first heard about this place? Then old Hogarth, Daddy-Two, came to see us. Remember how we fell for it? We were going to be doing something _important_! We were the vanguard of a world revolution--the greatest thing since the invention of people. A great sociological advancement.... What a laugh! Fairyland is nothing but a--an _orphan_ home! And mark my words, sooner or later they're going to come and close the place down!" Ruth patted the seat beside her. "Harry, come back and sit down." I scowled at her. But I sat.