They walked on for a while until the buzzing neon signs of a feelie theater were visible. "I'm going in," Roger said. "This place is starting to depress me. You?" Alan shot a glance at Quantrell, who made a face and shook his head. "I guess I'll skip it," Alan said. "Not just now." "Count me out too," Quantrell said. Roger looked sourly from one to the other, and shrugged. "I think I'll go all the same. I'm in the mood for a good show. See you around, Alan." After Roger left them, Alan and Quantrell walked on through the Enclave together. Alan wondered whether it wasn't a good idea to have gone to the feelie with Roger after all; the Enclave was starting to depress him, too, and those three-dimensional shows had a way of taking your mind off things. But he was curious about Quantrell. It wasn't often he had a chance to talk with someone his own age from another ship. "You know," he said, "we starmen lead an empty life. You don't get to realize it until you come to the Enclave." "I decided that a long time ago," Quantrell said. Alan spread his hands. "What do we do? We dash back and forth through space, and we huddle here in the Enclave. And we don't like either one or the other, but we fool ourselves into liking them. When we're in space we can't wait to get to the Enclave, and once we're down here we can't wait to get back. Some life." "Got any suggestions? Some way of fixing things up for us without queering interstellar commerce?" "Yes," Alan snapped. "I do have a suggestion. Hyperspace drive!" Quantrell laughed harshly. "Of all the cockeyed----" "There you are," Alan said angrily. "First thing you do is laugh. A spacewarp drive is just some hairbrained scheme to you. But haven't you ever considered that Earth's scientists won't bother developing such a drive for us if we don't care ourselves? They're just as happy the way things are. _They_ don't have to worry about the Fitzgerald Contraction." "But there's been steady research on a hyperdrive, hasn't there? Ever since Cavour, I thought." "On and off. But they don't take it very seriously and they don't get anywhere with it. If they'd really put some men to work they'd find it--and then there wouldn't be any more Enclaves or any Fitzgerald Contraction, and we starmen could live normal lives." "And your brother--he wouldn't be cut off from his people the way he is----" "Sure. But you laughed instead of thinking." Quantrell looked contrite. "Sorry. Guess I didn't put much jet behind my think-machine that time. But a hyperdrive would wipe out the Enclave system, wouldn't it?" "Of course! We'd be able to come home from space and take a normal part in Earth's life, instead of pulling away and segregating ourselves here."