Produced by Bruce Thomas, Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power...." Arcot pushed the control lever all the way to full power. The ship filled with the strain of flowing energy, and sparks snapped in the air of the control room as they raced at an inconceivable speed through the darkness of intergalactic space. But suddenly, far off to their left and far to their right, they saw two shining ships paralleling their course! They held grimly to the course of the Earth ship, bracketing it like an official guard. The Earth scientists stared at them in wonder. "Lord," muttered Morey, "where can they have come from?" * * * * * John W. Campbell first started writing in 1930 when his first short story, _When the Atoms Failed_, was accepted by a science-fiction magazine. At that time he was twenty years old and still a student at college. As the title of the story indicates, he was even at that time occupied with the significance of atomic energy and nuclear physics. For the next seven years, Campbell, bolstered by a scientific background that ran from childhood experiments, to study at Duke University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote and sold science-fiction, achieving for himself an enviable reputation in the field. In 1937 he became the editor of _Astounding Stories_ magazine and applied himself at once to the task of bettering the magazine and the field of s-f writing in general. His influence on science-fiction since then has been great. Today he still remains as the editor of that magazine's evolved and redesigned successor, _Analog_. ISLANDS OF SPACE by JOHN W. CAMPBELL ACE BOOKS, INC. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036 ISLANDS OF SPACE Copyright, 1956, by John W. Campbell, Jr. Copyright, 1930, by Experimenter Publications, Inc. An Ace Book, by arrangement with the author. All Rights Reserved _Cover by McKeon_ _Also by John W. Campbell In Ace editions_: THE BLACK STAR PASSES (F-346) THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE (F-364) Printed in U.S.A. [Illustration] PROLOGUE In the early part of the Twenty Second Century, Dr. Richard Arcot, hailed as "the greatest living physicist", and Robert Morey, his brilliant mathematical assistant, discovered the so-called "molecular motion drive", which utilized the random energy of heat to produce useful motion.