Jules Farrar's call to Jeremy Brill at 10:57 that night was necessarily brief. Mr. Daneshaw told him nothing of the wrangle with Avery and several others about the inevitable failure of any scheme so economically unsound as extraterrestrial colonization, nor did he tell the doctor that the number who wanted to go for the sake of going was considerably smaller than the number of those who would do anything that he, Tim Daneshaw, urged them to do. He reported only two things from the meeting: first, that they were willing to go on one condition; second, that the condition was that they were to be taught to man the _Colonia_ and that no younger "snippets" of officers, crew, and particularly medical and nursing staff should go along to hamper them. That was Avery's one victory. In the three hours' talk about Daneshaw's trip to U. A. headquarters that followed the phone call, the excited doctor almost forgot to ask how the Block Association had taken the morning's deaths. The old professor ran his hand through his white mane. "You know, Jules, I told them we'd discuss it after the other business and they never got around to it. Even if the trip doesn't come off, the crisis has been smoothed over for now. It's really rather shocking, isn't it?" And yet, finally, incredibly, the trip really was to "come off." No one man knew more than a fraction of the details, though Jeremy Brill and his beloved Company turned out to be more of a force than even Dr. Farrar visioned in his most facetious dreams. The doctor did have to be present at the U. A. loyalty tests, however, and would remember the rocking yet silent mirth of the entire commission to his dying day. The old people had been so outspoken, so set in their ways, but what a multitude of ways, that no bloc could be very seriously offended with them as a group. When little old Miss Severinghouse stated firmly, "I can't say as I trust anybody particularly, but President Wilson was a fine man," open-armed affectionate acceptance was assured. Laughter freshened the air; world tensions eased. * * * * * The months that followed were packed with unusual activity. Dr. Farrar, still at the helm of the Riston Physiological Observing Hospital, saw and heard little of it, beyond what he inferred from the questions of the newsreporters who were constantly trying to get beyond his office into the guarded privacy of Block Nineteen. He knew what assignments had been given to which of the "post-adults" (a newspaper phrase which had become universal). He knew, for instance, that Tim Daneshaw was at Annapolis with a number of others receiving advanced officer-training to prepare him for command. But he knew no details. He did not know how....