Collins sat quietly. He had been listening to this all evening. Smith-Boerke had been drinking, although it wasn't very obvious. Smith-Boerke turned to Collins. "I've been waiting for somebody like you. Just waiting for you to come along. And here you are, a wanted fugitive, completely in my power! Perfect, _perfect_." Collins nodded to himself. Of course, Colonel Smith-Boerke had been waiting for him. And Doc Candle had driven him right to him. It was inescapable. He had been intended to escape and turn up right here all along. "What do you want with me?" Smith-Boerke's flushed face brightened. "You want to become a hero? A hero so big that all these trumped-up charges against you will be dropped? It'll be romantic. Back to Lindbergh-to-Paris. Tell me, Collins, how would you like to be the first man to travel faster than light?" Collins knew there was no way out. "All right," he said. Smith-Boerke wiped a hand across his dry mouth. "Project Silver _has_ to come off. My whole career depends on it. You don't have anything to do. Everything's cybernetic. Just ride along and prove a human being can survive. Nothing to it. No hyperdrives, none of that kind of stuff. We had an engine that could go half lightspeed and now we've made it twice as efficient and more. No superstitions about Einstein, I hope? No? Good." "I'll go," Collins said. "But what if I had said 'no'." Smith-Boerke put the gun away in a desk drawer. "Then you could have walked out of here, straight into the MP's." "Why didn't they come in here after me?" "They don't have security clearance for this building." "_Don't_ leave me alone," Nancy said urgently. "I don't understand what's happening. I feel so helpless. I need help." "You're asking the wrong man," Collins said briefly. * * * * * Collins felt safe when the airlock kissed shut its metal lips. It was not like the house, but yet he felt safe, surrounded by all the complicated, expensive electronic equipment. It was big, solid, sterilely gleaming. Another thing--he had reason to believe that Doc Candle's power could not reach him through metal. "But I'm not outside," Doc Candle said, "I'm in here, with you." Collins yelled and cursed, he tried to pull off the acceleration webbing and claw through the airlock. Nobody paid any attention to him. Count downs had been automated. Smith-Boerke was handling this one himself, and he cut off the Audio-In switch from the spaceship. Doc Candle said nothing else for a moment, and the spaceship, almost an entity itself, went on with its work. The faster-than-light spaceship took off. At first it was like any other rocket takeoff. The glow of its exhaust spread over the field of the spaceport, then over the hills and valleys, and then the town of Waraxe, spreading illumination even as far as Sam Collins' silent house. After a time of being sick, Collins lay back and accepted this too.