All the records were here: the preliminary trials, the budget allocations, the sketches and plans, the names of the researchers. Walton ploughed painstakingly through them, learning names, assimilating scientific data. It seemed that, while it was still in its early stages, FitzMaugham had nurtured the project along with money from his personal fortune. For most of the morning Walton leafed through documents describing projected generators, types of hull material, specifications, speculations. It was nearly noon when he came across the neatly-typed note from Colonel Leslie McLeod, one of the military scientists in charge of the ultradrive project. Walton read it through once, gasped, and read it again. It was dated 14 June 2231, almost one year ago. It read: _My dear Mr. FitzMaugham:_ _I'm sure it will gladden you to learn that we have at last achieved success in our endeavors. The X-72 passed its last tests splendidly, and we are ready to leave on the preliminary scouting flight at once._ McLeod It was followed by a note from FitzMaugham to McLeod, dated 15 June: _Dr. McLeod:_ _All best wishes on your great adventure. I trust you'll be departing, as usual, from the Nairobi base within the next few days. Please let me hear from you before departure._ _FitzM._ The file concluded with a final note from McLeod to the director, dated 19 June 2231: _My dear Mr. FitzMaugham:_ _The X-72 will leave Nairobi in eleven hours, bound outward, manned by a crew of sixteen, including myself. The men are all impatient for the departure. I must offer my hearty thanks for the help you have given us over the past years, without which we would never have reached this step._ _Flight plans include visiting several of the nearer stars, with the intention of returning either as soon as we have discovered a habitable extrasolar world, or one year after departure, whichever first occurs._ _Sincere good wishes, and may you have as much success when you plead your case before the United Nations as we have had here--though you'll forgive me for hoping that our work might make any population equalization program on Earth totally superfluous!_ _McLeod_ Walton stared at the three notes for a moment, so shocked he was unable to react. So a faster-than-light drive was not merely a hoped-for dream, but an actuality--with the first scouting mission a year absent already! He felt a new burst of admiration for FitzMaugham. What a marvelous old scoundrel he had been! Faster-than-light achieved, and the terraforming group on Venus, and neither fact released to the public ... or even specifically given to FitzMaugham's own staff, his alleged confidants.