Dot didn't say anything then. It was such a story-book plan, such a crazy thing that it would never work; she knew it would never work. "Doug, Doug...." He held her close to him. "Dot," he said, "we have two choices I think. We can be mature, we can be logical, we can make a tragedy out of a desperate situation and die martyrs to conservative thinking. Or we can keep grabbing at straws until we are sunk or end up ingloriously alive. Which way?" She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "I guess a knock-down drag-out thriller, mister.... But Doug--I'm scared." * * * * * He stood still, apart from the other three as they talked in low, casual tones, waiting for the space-tower signal to board their ships. An early morning breeze tugged gently at his blue cloak, and he had to shield his eyes with his gauntlets as he looked at the four slender columns of glittering metal that tapered to needle points high above him. A quarter their diameter and height they might have been simple V-2 rockets on some strange desert proving-ground. At the same time they were the fantastic silver darts that he remembered from the pages of colored Sunday supplements which had foretold the coming of flight through Space. Yet the feeling of everyday security that they tore away was replaced with a vigorous thing inside him that was of firmer stuff than awe, more challenging than fear, more exciting than adventure. And suddenly, sailing ships were the toys of children, and oceans were spilled tea in a saucer. They were a strange people, Doug thought. A horrible people, perhaps, a people whom he wanted desperately to escape. Yet a people who had learned that the sky and the Earth were not enough, nor were ever meant to be. A green light flashed. The three Quadrates ended their conversation, boarded waiting surface-vehicles and started toward their ships. A car with a pennant bearing the insignia of a Senior Quadrate flying from atop its sleek passenger enclosure drove up beside Doug. "Your transportation, sir." He returned the salute. "Thank you, no. I shall walk," he said. It was a short walk--less than two hundred yards, but he did not want it all to happen too quickly. His steps were measured in slow, deliberate cadence as he crossed the smooth plaza toward the great craft on which his insignia was emblazoned. At length he was swallowed up inside it, and at a flashing blue signal, the four great ships thundered for the stars, and left Earth a little thing behind them. CHAPTER XI Acceleration had left Doug at the brink of unconsciousness despite the hammock in which they'd secured him, but gradually the roar in his ears subsided and the words took shape, as though they were being spoken from the bottom of an empty well.