And then there was France. Long influential in world history, this small country was reduced by two wars to a minor position. France had at one time been the seat of scientific progress in the world. The French regained status when they got antigravity. Zwicky, at Cal Tech, had long ago shown that the effect of gravity occurred either twice or one-half the speed of light. Apparently no one paid much attention, except for a few obscure French philosophers. And so, in the course of eight months in 1964-1965, the focus of power in the world again shifted to the English Channel. Of course, these developments were secret. If the U. S. and U. S. S. R. were left with their tongues hanging out, they didn't realize it. But not for long. You just can't keep things like that secret. And man being what he is.... The French were spying on the British; the British on the Russians; the Russians on the United States; and the U. S. was spying on all three. Antigravity had its limits. With it, you could never exceed light speed because you were confined to the physical, Einsteinian universe. What was needed was raw energy to warp the continuum, fold it like a piece of paper, and punch a hole through it as a short cut. That's where controlled fusion came in. And even though it required tons of equipment, antigravity made it possible to get those tons off the ground. By 1970, the four powers were racing to explore the universe. If anything, relations between them were worse. All gave lip service to the noble idea of finding intelligent life; actually, the world knew that the first nation to find such life would be enlisting a powerful ally, creating a shift in power that might mean control. There were exceptions. Take Russia, who'd brought the Red Chinese along too fast. As many had predicted as far back as 1941, the U. S. S. R. was now trying to play footsie with the West. Unfortunately, there no longer was a West as such. Each was to its own. So the world groaned under a new burden when it was rumored that the Chinese were working on their first transcontinuum ship. With the power of fusion at his command, man had everything he could possibly want. But it had come too soon; he was unaware. Instead, he went into space looking for intelligence equal to or greater than his own, looking for a new club to use against his neighbors on Earth. Man, the cynics said, was too immature, would destroy himself before 1980--himself and the life he's trying to find. The cynics were in overwhelming preponderance. Yet a few voices were raised in hope: Don't let this throw you, but is it possible that the artist-philosopher had again come to the fore? * * * * * The shift in the others had seemed abrupt to Fred. They were far more interested in that damned planet than in him; this should have been perfectly natural except for the speed of occurrence.