"A little over a century ago, we detected something else on the hypersee band. It sounded like a weird sort of static; a whining sort of thing. The only source that could put out that kind of disturbance was found to be material objects traveling faster than the velocity of light. "That gave us our first clue--the first hint that hypersee ships could be built. We figured that if the aliens had them, we could get them, too. "It took better than thirty years, but we've got it now. Our hypersee fleet has been consolidating the colonies for two hundred light years out, and we're constantly expanding. "Within the next year, we'll be able to ship you supplies and material, which will speed up your colonization by about fifty years. You'll have a going civilization there in your lifetime instead of the three generations that the planners originally estimated. "These are the major developments. Any questions, Lieutenant?" There were questions, of course, plenty of them, but Parmay didn't pay much attention to them. Those pioneers the ICC jokingly called the Ancestors were time travelers in a very real sense of the word. They came out of near-light drive to find that the rest of the universe had passed them up; they were anachronisms. It hadn't been too bad at first; they were not too far displaced from their own time, those who had first reported in, centuries ago. But now they found that their speech was old-fashioned and their beautiful new ships were completely out-moded. They could not be told immediately that the new hypersee ships were transporting colonists to the stars faster than the old near-light ships were coming out of the fitzgerald. They could not be told that they had gone out in vain. A psych engineer had to be careful in telling them what had happened. The old ships had served their purpose, of course; without them, the race of man would not be nearly as far flung through the stars as it was now. But it would be hard to convince the Ancestors that they were still performing a useful function--unless a psych engineer told them so. * * * * * Kerrman had assigned 796 a report schedule and had cut the connection. He looked up at Parmay. "If I'm the boss now, I can knock off any time I please. There won't be another Ancestor for three days; Eight-Oh-Two is due then. As soon as I get all the dope on this one correlated, I'd like to talk to you. Where're you headed now?" Parmay grinned. "I'm going to tell Alina. I want to watch her blow her stack. I'll see you at my place as soon as you quit. Okay?" "Good enough. Don't shock your everlovin' too much." "_Hah!_" Parmay _hah'd_. "That woman is about as shockproof as they come." Parmay left communications and took a drop down sixty-three levels to the Hypersee Physics section. Alina's lab was deadly silent when he opened the door. The four technicians under her were watching their instruments and ignoring the door.