Dona cut it off quickly. A dry, crisp voice came in on a higher wave-length. "This is Matix speaking. You will arrange at once to procure from Khamil Four a shipment of fighting animals for the Lord Sohn's festival four days hence. Fliers will arrive at the matter-transmitter to take them on board tomorrow afternoon two hours before sunset. Lord Sohn was most pleased with the gheets in the last shipment. They do not fight well against men, but against women they are fairly deadly. In addition--" "Somehow, I don't think we'll land, Dona," Kim said very quietly. "But turn back to the first voice." Her hand shook, but she obeyed. The unctuous voice had somehow the air of ending its speech. "Before going on, I repeat we are grateful for the perfection of our way of life, and we resolve firmly that so long as our planet shall circle Altair, in no wise will we depart from it." Kim turned the nose of the _Starshine_ upward. The stars of the Galaxy seemed strangely bright and monstrously indifferent. The little space-ship drove back into the heavens. After a pause, Kim turned to Dona. "Look up Altair," he said. "We came a very long way indeed." There was silence save for the rustling of the index-volume as Dona searched for Altair in the sun-index. Presently she read off the space-coördinates. Kim calculated, ruefully. "That wasn't space-travel," he said drily. "That was matter-transmission. The _Starshine_ is a matter-transmitter, Dona, transmitting itself and us. I wasn't aware of any interval between the time I pressed the stud and the time the altered field shut off. But we came almost a quarter across the Galaxy." "It was--horrible," Dona said, shivering. "I thought Alphin Three was bad, but the tyranny here is ghastly." "Alphin Three is a new planet," Kim told her grimly. "This one below us is old. Alphin Three has been occupied for barely two hundred years. Its people have relatively the vigor and the sturdy independence of pioneers, and still they're sheep! We're in an older part of the Galaxy now and the race back here has grown old and stupid and cruel. And I imagine it's ready to die." He bent forward and made a careful adjustment of the light-operated distance-gauge. He cut it down enormously. "We'll try it again," he said. He pressed the stud.... 6 _Haven at Last_ An increasing sense of futility and depression crept over Kim and Dona during the next few days. They visited four solar systems, separated by distances which would have seemed unthinkable before the alteration of the overdrive.