McLaurin came down the corridor, and stopped near Kendall. He too smiled at the Miran's attempts. "They've got a long way to go, Buck." "They're going a long way. Clear back home--and we'll be right along. I don't think they can outdistance us." "I still don't see why you couldn't use one of those Uncertainty conditions--the First Degree perhaps, and annihilate our inertia." "You can't control Uncertainty. By its essential character it's beyond control." "What's that Fourth Degree machine of yours--the material energy--if it isn't controlled and utilized Uncertainty?" "It's utter and utterly uncontrolled Uncertainty. The matter within that field breaks down to absolutely nothing. Within, no law whatsoever applies, but fortunately, outside the old laws of physics apply--and we can gather and use the energy which is released outside, though nothing can be done inside. Why, think, man, if I could control that Uncertainty, I could do anything at all, absolutely anything. It would be a world as unreasonable as a bad dream. Think how unreasonable those manifestations we first got were!" "But can't you get any control at all?" "Very little. Anyway, if I could get inertialess conditions at will, I'd be afraid of them. They'd make chemical reactions impossible in all probability--and life is chemical. Two atoms must come into more or less violent contact before a union takes place, and cannot if they have neither momentum nor inertia. "Anyway--why worry. I can't do it, because I can't control this thing. And we have the extra-space drive." "How does that darned thing work? Can't you drop the math and tell me about it?" Kendall smiled. "Not too readily. Remember first, as to the driving system, that it works on the fabric of space. Space is, in the physical sense, a fabric woven of the threads of lines of force from every body in the universe, made up of fields and forces. It is elastic, and can transmit strains. But anything that can transmit strains, can be strained against. With the tremendous field intensities available by the material engines, I can get such fields as will 'dig their toes' into space and push. "That's the drive itself. It is accelerationless, because it enfolds us, and acts equally on every atom of us. By maintaining in addition a slight artificial gravity--thanks also to the intensity of those material engine fields--we can be comfortable, while we accelerate at tremendous rates.