"You don't? Mr. Reed, was your desire to improve the efficiency of Operations a simple desire to improve the Service--or did you hope that this brilliant suggestion would, perhaps, provide you with a better assignment?" "I still do not understand." "Oh, you don't? Mr. Reed, why did you join the Space Service in the first place?" "Because, sir, I hoped that I could be instrumental in helping mankind to spread across the Galaxy." "Mr. Reed, have you sand in your shoes?" "Sir?" The commander sighed. "You hoped to go along on the voyage, didn't you?" "Well, sir, I did have a hope that I'd become a real spaceman." "And you're disappointed?" Howard Reed's face was wistful, torn between a desire to confide in his commanding officer and the fear of saying what he knew to be a sharp criticism of the Space Service. Then Reed realized that he was in a bad pinch anyway, and so he said, "Sir, I'm commissioned as a junior spaceman, but in three years I've only made one short test flight--and only to Luna! I am competent to pilot--or at least that's what the flight simulators say in my checkout tests. I'm a junior spaceman--yet every time I apply for active space duty, I'm refused! Three years I've spent in the Service, sir, solving theoretical and hypothetical problems in space operations. But aside from one test flight to the Moon, I have yet to set a foot inside of a spacecraft, let alone stand on the soil of another world!" "You must learn patience, Mr. Reed." "_Patience_, sir? Look, sir, I took this sedentary duty until I'd had it up to here, and then I began to pry into the question of why we have a Space Force, complete with spacecraft, and still do so little space traveling. I found out. We're limited to a maximum range of seventeen light-years to the point of no return. Even a trip to Eden, Tau Ceti, our nearest colony, is eleven-point-eight light-years, and that takes prodigious power." "Granted," said the commander. "But now, sir, if we could increase our range by one hundred times, this does not necessarily mean that we must actually power the spacecraft for that point of no return. It also means that we could charge the ship with one one-hundredth of its former banks for the short trip to Eden, Tau Ceti--which would leave a _fantastic_ amount of storage and cargo and passenger space. Sir, we could start real commerce!" * * * * * Commander Breckenridge gave no reaction. "And you hoped to be among them." "Yes, sir! As a kid, I read about mankind's first exploration of space two hundred years ago, sir. Of course, I couldn't hope to set foot on a new planet, since every possible planet within the seventeen-light-year range has been looked over. But I wanted to see space myself, sir--and I did hope that I might extend Man's frontier beyond our rather small limit."