Besides, the Boskonians, whoever they might be, had certainly mastered it; he was now certain that they were operating upon an intergalactic scale. Even after leaving Tellus he had hoped and had really expected that his line would lead to a stronghold in some star cluster belonging to his own Galaxy, so distant from it, or perhaps so small, as to have escaped the notice of the chartmakers; but such was not the case. No possible error in either the determination or the following of that line placed it anywhere near any such cluster. It led straight to and only to Lundmark's Nebula; and that Galaxy was, therefore, his present destination. Man was certainly as good as the pirates; probably better, on the basis of past performance. Of all the races of the Galaxy, man had always taken the initiative, had always been the leader and commander. And, with the exception of the Arisians, man had the best brain in the Galaxy. The thought of that eminently philosophical race gave Kinnison pause. His Arisian sponsor had told him that by virtue of the Lens the Patrol should be able to make Civilization secure throughout the Galaxy. Just what did that mean--that it could not go outside? Or did even the Arisians suspect that Boskonia was in fact intergalactic? Probably. The mentor had said that, given any one definite fact, a really competent mind could envisage the entire Universe; even though he had added carefully that his own mind was not a really competent one. But this, too, was idle speculation, and it was time to receive and to correlate some more reports. Therefore, one by one, he got in touch with scientists and observers. The density of matter in space, which had been lessening steadily, was now approximately constant at one atom per four hundred cubic centimeters. Their speed was therefore about a hundred thousand parsecs per hour; and, even allowing for the slowing up at both ends due to the density of the medium, the trip should not take over ten days. The power situation, which had been his gravest care, since it was almost the only factor not amenable to theoretical solution, was even better than anyone had dared hope; the cosmic energy available in space had actually been increasing as the matter content decreased--a fact which seemed to bear out the contention than energy was continually being converted into matter in such regions. It was taking much less excitation of the intake screens to produce a given flow of power than any figure ever observed in the denser media within the Galaxy.