There was a pause, then the microphone barked: "I don't know the answer to that question. You won't believe me, but it is the truth. No one knows where you are going. No one. Except the people who are already there." More catcalls. "That doesn't make sense," Arkalion whispered. "If it's space travel, the pilots would know, wouldn't they?" "Automatic?" Temple suggested. "I doubt it. Space travel must still be new, even if it has thirty years under its belt. If that man speaks the truth--if no one knows ... just where in the universe _are_ we going?" CHAPTER III "Hey, looka me. I'm flying!" "Will you get your big fat feet out of my face?" "Sure. Show me how to swim away through air, I'll be glad to." "Leggo that spoon!" "I ain't got your spoon." "Will you look at it float away. Hey spoon, hey!" "Watch this, Charlie. This will get you. I mean, get you." "What are you gonna do?" "Relax, chum." "Leggo my leg. Help! I'm up in the air. Stop that." "I said relax. There. Ha-ha, lookit him spin, just like a top. All you got to do is get him started and he spins like a top with arms and legs. Top of the morning to you, Charlie. Ha-ha. I said, top of the...." "Someone stop me, I'm getting dizzy." They floated, tumbled, spun around the spaceship's lounge room in simple, childish glee. They cavorted in festive weightlessness. "They're happy now," Arkalion observed. "The novelty of free fall, of weighing exactly nothing, strikes them as amusing." "I think I'm getting the hang of it," said Temple. Clumsily, he made a few tentative swimming motions in the air, propelling himself forward a few yards before he lost his balance and tumbled head over heels against the wall. Arkalion came to him quickly, in a combination of swimming and pushing with hands and feet against the wall. Arkalion righted him expertly, sat down gingerly beside him. "If you keep sudden motions to a minimum, you'll get along fine. More than anything else, that's the secret of it." Temple nodded. "It's sort of like the first time you're on ice skates. Say, how come you're so good at it?" [Illustration] "I used to read the old, theoretical books on space-travel." The words poured out effortlessly, smoothly. "I'm merely applying the theories put forward as early as the 1950's." "Oh." But it left Temple with some food for thought. Alaric Arkalion was a queer duck, anyway, and of all the men gathered in the spaceship's lounge, he alone had mastered weightlessness with hardly any trouble. "Take your ice skates," Arkalion went on. "Some people put them on and use them like natural extensions of their feet the first time. Others fall all over themselves. I suppose I am lucky."