There were no others in the workshop to which he had been assigned. He was to work on his drive unit alone, Majtech B-Haaq had ordered, and of course the reason was obvious. One young heretic was enough. But what if the glittering, finely-tooled object that rested on the long workbench before him was wrong and would not work? Yet he knew that it would! Mounted in a standard model spacetender, the drive unit which he'd devised would easily produce five times the speed and power, would consume less than half as much atomic fuel, would quadruple range, last twice as long. It had taken slightly over a month to build; B-Haaq had grudgingly granted him all the time he estimated he'd need, but he'd hurried nonetheless--sixteen, sometimes eighteen hours at a stretch. Yet the work had not been difficult. As he'd tooled and formed the simple, compact parts and watched his creation grow steadily from one day to the next, he had marvelled that certain self-evident innovations of design had not been adopted years before. It was not, he knew, that he was so much cleverer than they! Rather, it was almost as though such improvement had been deliberately avoided. And ITA space drives had remained cumbersome, overly-complex and unwieldy. He straightened from his work. It was done, and the ships of the Intergalactic Technical Alliance would be caught up a solid century at least! He had now only to request an installation crew of labortechs, supervise for a few hours, and then-- "Master Kane!" The startled cadtech snapped to immediate attention. It was B-Haaq. He had entered the workshop without signalling. "Yes Sire!" "I must make a report of your progress to the Gentech's headquarters." He spoke levelly, but Kane could feel the resentment in his voice. "My work is completed, sire. I was at this moment preparing to summon a labortech installation crew, and to supervise--" "I'll do the summoning, Master Kane! And the supervision! I don't believe it necessary to remind you that even if you have refused your commission, I accepted my own quite some time ago! This mechanism is completed, you say?" "Yes, sire. I hope that I shall be permitted to pilot--" B-Haaq was bending over the gleaming unit, his face expressionless. "No one is to pilot the craft, Master Kane," he said without looking up. "We of the ITA still know something of remote radio control, I assure you. You will work from Navigation Information Center, at controls already set up there for the purpose." Kane kept his silence, and tried to keep his disappointment from showing in his face. "Tell me, Master Kane--" and the Section Overseer had straightened and was now facing him squarely again, "--have you ever been told why you were picked--I believe a better word is rescued--from that hell planet of yours in Procyon for the ITA?" "Yes, sire, I was, during basic indoctrination," Kane answered.