"You might say there can be no greater energy than that of matter annihilation. I doubt that. I have seen hints of something new--an energy so vast--so transcendently tremendous--that it frightens me. The energies of all the mighty suns of all the galaxies--of the whole cosmos--in the hand of man! The energy of a billion billion billion suns! And every sun pouring out its energy at the rate of quintillions of horsepower every instant! "But it's too great for man to have--I am going to forget it, lest man be destroyed by his own might." Arcot's halting speech told of his intense thought--of a dream of such awful energies as man had never before conceived. His eyes looked unseeing at the black velvet of space with its few, scattered stars. "But we're here to decide which way to go," he added with a sudden briskness as he straightened his shoulders. "Every now and then, I get a new idea and I--I sort of dream. That's when I'm most likely to see the solution. I think I know the solution now, but unless the need arises, I'm never going to use it. It's too dangerous a toy." There was silence for a moment, then Morey said, quietly: "I've got a course plotted for us. We'll leave this Galaxy at a steep angle--about forty-five degrees from the Galactic plane--to give us a good view of our own Galaxy. And we can head for one of the nebulae in that general area. What do you say?" "I say," remarked Fuller, "that some of the great void without seems to have leaked into my own poor self. It's been thirty thousand years since I am going to have a meal this morning--whatever it is I mean--and I want another." He looked meaningfully at Wade, the official cook of the expedition. Arcot suddenly burst out laughing. "So that's what I've been wanting!" It had been ten chronometer hours since they had eaten, but since they had been outracing light, they were now thirty thousand years in Earth's past. The weightlessness of free fall makes it difficult to recognize normally familiar sensations, and the feeling of hunger is one of them. There was little enough work to be done, so there was no great need for nourishment, but the ordinary sensation of hunger is not caused by lack of nourishment, but an empty stomach. Sleep was another problem. A restless body will not permit a tired brain to sleep, and though they had done a great deal of hard mental work, the lack of physical fatigue made sleep difficult. The usual "day" in space was forty hours, with thirty-hour waking periods and ten hours of sleep. "Let's eat, then," Arcot decided. "Afterwards, we'll take a few photographs and then throw this ship into high and really make time." * * * * * Two hours later, they were again seated at the control board. Arcot reached out and threw the red switch. "I'm going to give her half power for ten seconds." The air about them seemed suddenly snapping with unprecedented power--then it was gone as the coil became fully charged.