Each of the men had a room of his own; there was a small galley and a library equipped with all the books the four men could think of as being useful. The books and all other equipment were clamped in place to keep them from flying around loose when the ship accelerated. The control room at the nose was surrounded by a hemisphere of transparent lux metal which enabled them to see in every direction except directly behind, and even that blind spot could be covered by stationing a man in the observatory. There were heat projectors and molecular ray projectors, each operated from the control room in the nose. To complete the armament, there were more projectors in the stern, controlled from the observatory, and a set on either side controlled from the library and the galley. The ship was provisioned for two years--two years without stops. With the possibility of stopping on other planets, the four men could exist indefinitely in the ship. After the two older men had been shown all through the intergalactic vessel, the elder Arcot turned to his old friend. "Morey, it looks as if it was time for us to leave the _Ancient Mariner_ to her pilots!" "I guess you're right. Well--I'll just say goodbye--but you all know there's a lot more I could say." Morey senior looked at them and started toward the airlock. "Goodbye, son," said the elder Arcot. "Goodbye, men. I'll be expecting you any time within two years. We can have no warning, I suppose; your ship will outrace the radio beam. Goodbye." Dr. Arcot joined his old friend and they went outside. The heavy lux metal door slid into place behind them, and the thick plastic cushions sealed the entrance to the airlock. The workmen and the other personnel around the ship cleared the area and stood well back from the great hull. The two older men waved to the men inside the ship. Suddenly the ship trembled, and rose toward the sky. V Arcot, at the controls of the _Ancient Mariner_, increased the acceleration as the ship speared up toward interplanetary space. Soon, the deep blue of the sky had given way to an intense violet, and this faded to the utter black of space as the ship drew away from the planet that was its home. "That lump of dust there is going to look mighty little when we get back," said Wade softly. "But," Arcot reminded him, "that little lump of dust is going to pull us across a distance that our imaginations can't conceive of. And we'll be darned happy to see that pale globe swinging in space when we get back--provided, of course, that we do get back." The ship was straining forward now under the pull of its molecular motion power units, accelerating at a steady rate, rapidly increasing the distance between the ship and Earth. The cosmic ray power generators were still charging the coils, preventing the use of the space strain drive. Indeed, it would be a good many hours before they would be far enough from the sun to throw the ship into hyperspace.