United Earth had been trying for twelve years to set a rocket on Luna, and before that, the Free Americas and the Asian Alliance had ruthlessly trampled one another in a futile race for a satellite station. But no drive, no known fuel could successfully propel a rocket beyond the outer limits of Earth’s gravity. That afternoon, Kerry had received a phone call from a dead man. Ben Thrusher had been a rocket research-expert for the Government of the Free Americas, but a tragic accident had made him one of the earliest casualties in Earth’s war against the Pharigs. Or had it been an accident? Farther up the counter, he heard the waiter grumble, “Counter’s closed, lad. Too near curfew. You want to get picked up by the Night Police?” “I only came to meet a friend here,” the newcomer said. Kerry, lifting his eyes from a routine headline, _Pharig Atrocities Spark Curfew Crackdown in Dallas_, looked up quickly and found himself staring at the face of a tanned youngster, maybe nineteen, maybe even younger. He was wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket. “You must be Mr. Donalson?” the youngster said. Kerry stood up. “And you’re Lewis Fallon?” he asked. The youngster nodded and touched Kerry’s extended hand briefly. “I thought you wouldn’t show up,” Kerry said. “Coffee?” “No time,” Fallon said. “Like the man said, it’s near curfew, and we don’t want to get picked up by the Night Police, do we, now?” The youth spoke with a faint inflection of sarcasm, looking past Kerry at the recruiting poster which hung over the cash register. AN EARTH DIVIDED IS AN EARTH CONQUERED _Join the Night Police_ _Serve in Your Own Community!_ Kerry shrugged into his overcoat, and flung a greenie on the counter. The counterman, making change, sounded apologetic. “I didn’t mean to hurry you up, Mister. Only I live way out in the suburbs and I don’t want to go home under police escort again. My wife gets nervous.” “That’s all right,” Kerry said. “Sorry I kept you from closing on time.” He left the change and went out into the glare of the streetlights, the Fallon youngster walking easily and warily at his side. He noticed that Fallon glanced nervously to right and left as they came out, as if he expected to see someone waiting. But the street was empty--a bare illuminated cavern that stretched away for endless miles, white with the billions of vapor-lamps that brightened every street and alley. Earth was largely a continuous network of cities by now--and every inch of the crammed countryside, every solitary lane or alley. “I hope, if you have a wife,” Fallon said, “that she’s not the nervous type.” “I called Ruth before I left the _Times-Telegram_ building,” Kerry said.