He began to climb the ladder, and the treads rang hollow beneath his feet. High. High up in the cold wind, with the smell of the wet moor heavy on it. A round lock chamber opened before him. He stepped into it, on a metal deck worn bright by the passing of many feet. Others came behind him and pressed him on, down a long transverse corridor faced in metal. The scars of time and hard use were on it. Now and again through a bulkhead door he glimpsed a cabin or an orderly room. They were real. Men lived and worked in them. Someone--Edri--made him turn aside and into a lounge with deep chairs bolted to the deck. "Sit down," said Edri, and he sat obediently. And Edri said, "You have a chance, but you'll have to fight for it. The first time is hard even for...." He stopped, and Trehearne finished for him. "Even for a true Vardda." "Even," said Edri gently, "for a Vardda. Trehearne, we're alone in the galaxy. Generations ago our race was founded by a man named Orthis, whose system of controlled mutation made us what we are, the Vardda--the Starmen. It's a difference, a condition of the flesh. With us there is no doubt. With you--your blood is mixed. But you're a throwback in every other way. The mutation may have bred true, also." His voice carried hope, but no conviction. Trehearne frowned, trying to grasp the sense of what he said. It was hard to think, hard to believe with his mind, in spite of what his senses told him. Things had happened too fast. Too fast, and too big. He caught a glimpse of Shairn's face. It was white, and he realized that all at once she was beginning to be afraid. "Fight," said Edri. "That's the thing to remember." All through the ship, the bells rang sharply. Trehearne took hold of the arms of the chair in which he sat. For a brief moment of panic he wanted to get up and run, but he could hear the sonorous clang of the lock-doors closing and he knew it was no use. Everyone was seated now. The bells rang again. He braced himself, and fixed his gaze on Shairn. Swift, smooth and awesome as the hand of God, acceleration pressed down upon him. Muttering an all but silent thunder, the ship rushed upward into the sky, and for the first time in history, Earth-born ears listened to the banshee scream of atmosphere past a cleaving hull. FIVE The wailing shriek rose to a crescendo, and then it died. Earth was gone. They had stepped away from it. Even its sky was behind them. A weight like to the weight of mountains lay on Trehearne, and he was horribly afraid.