Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction January 1964. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. subjectivity Boredom on a long, interstellar trip can be quite a problem ... but the entertainment technique the government dreamed up for this one was a leeetle too good...! NORMAN SPINRAD Illustrated by Leo Summers * * * * * Interplanetary flight having been perfected, the planets and moons of the Sol system having been colonized, Man turned his attention to the stars. And ran into a stone wall. After three decades of trying, scientists reluctantly concluded that a faster-than-light drive was an impossibility, at least within the realm of any known theory of the Universe. They gave up. But a government does not give up so easily, especially a unified government which already controls the entire habitat of the human race. _Most_ especially a psychologically and sociologically enlightened government which sees the handwriting on the wall, and has already noticed the first signs of racial claustrophobia--an objectless sense of frustrated rage, increases in senseless crimes, proliferation of perversions and vices of every kind. Like grape juice sealed in a bottle, the human race had begun to ferment. Therefore, the Solar Government took a slightly different point of view towards interstellar travel--Man _must_ go to the stars. Period. Therefore, Man _will_ go to the stars. If the speed of light could not be exceeded, then Man would go to the stars within that limit. When a government with tens of billions of dollars to spend becomes monomaniacal, Great Things can be accomplished. Also, unfortunately, Unspeakable Horrors. _Stage One_: A drive was developed which could propel a spaceship at half the speed of light. This was merely a matter of technological concentration, and several billion dollars. _Stage Two_: A ship was built around the drive, and outfitted with every conceivable safety device. A laser-beam communication system was installed, so that Sol could keep in contact with the ship all the way to Centaurus. A crew of ten carefully screened, psyched and trained near-supermen was selected, and the ship was launched on a sixteen-year round-trip to Centaurus. It never came back. Two years out, the ten near-supermen became ten raving maniacs. But the Solar Government did not give up. The next ship contained five near-supermen, and five near-superwomen. They only lasted for a year and a half. The Solar Government intensified the screening process. The next ship was manned by ten bona-fide supermen. They stayed sane for nearly three years.