"I don't get it, Dad. Why do you hope I keep at it? If I ever find what I'm looking for, it's going to mean the end of Starman life as you know it. Travel between planets will be instantaneous. There--there won't be this business of making jumps and getting separated from everyone you used to know." "You're right. I've just begun thinking seriously about this business of hyperdrive. There wouldn't be any Contraction effect. Think of the changes it would mean in Starman society! No more--no more permanent separations if someone decides to leave his ship for a while." Alan understood what his father meant. Suddenly he saw the reason for Captain Donnell's abrupt growth of interest in the development of a hyperdrive. _It's Steve that's on his mind_, Alan thought. _If we had had a hyperspace drive and Steve had done what he did, it wouldn't have mattered. He'd still be my age._ Now the _Valhalla_ was about to journey to Procyon. Another twenty years would pass before it got back, and Steve would be almost fifty by then. That's what's on his mind, Alan thought. He lost Steve forever--but he doesn't want any more Steves to happen. The Contraction took one of his sons away. And now he wants the hyperdrive as much as I do. Alan glanced at the stiff, erect figure of his father as they clambered out of the copter and headed at a fast clip toward the Administration Building of the Enclave. He wondered just how much pain and anguish his father was keeping hidden back of that brisk, efficient exterior. _I'll get the Cavour drive someday_, Alan thought suddenly. _And I'll be getting it for him as well as me._ The bizarre buildings of the Enclave loomed up before him. Behind them, just visible in the purplish twilight haze, were the tips of the shining towers of the Earther city outside. Somewhere out there, probably, was Steve. _I'll find him too_, Alan thought firmly. * * * * * Most of the _Valhalla's_ people had already been assigned rooms in the quarantine section of one of the Enclave buildings when Alan and his father arrived. The bored-looking desk clerk--a withered-looking oldster who was probably a retired Starman--gave Alan his room number. It turned out to be a small, squarish room furnished with an immense old pneumochair long since deflated, a cot, and a washstand. The wall was a dull green, with gaping cracks in the faded paint, and cut heavily with a penknife into one wall was the inscription, BILL DANSERT SLEPT HERE, _June 28 2683_ in sturdy block letters. Alan wondered how many other starmen had occupied the room before and after Bill Dansert. He wondered whether perhaps Bill Dansert himself were still alive somewhere between the stars, twelve centuries after he had left his name in the wall. He dropped himself into the pneumochair, feeling the soggy squish of the deflated cushion, and loosened the jacket of his uniform.