So progress had been slow. After better than four centuries of interstellar travel, mankind had colonized every habitable world within a sphere of four hundred light-years’ radius. It was reasonable to assume that the pattern of that sphere held true for the rest of the galaxy: at least one habitable but uninhabited Earth-type planet round every main sequence sun. No other intelligent life-form had ever been discovered; the universe belonged to man—but it would be millennia before man could take possession.
That fact had irked McKenzie during his years of training for the Archonate; and when the death of Technarch Bengstrom raised McKenzie to the dais, he bent all of Earth’s energies to the task of devising some means of cheating the chains of relativity.
There were failures, expensive ones. Test ships had been sent out and monitored and followed by manned ships, and the manned ships had exploded or never returned. And still there were volunteers for the next ship, and the next, and the one after that…
Until the advent of Daviot-Leeson Drive, with its incredibly slender generator smashing a hole in space-time by controlled thermonuclear thrusts—and suddenly the way seemed clear. Space in the region of a star, reasoned Daviot and Leeson, is warped and distorted by the star’s mass and heat. If only the same effect could be duplicated in miniature, if only a wedge could be opened in the space-time fabric wide enough for a ship to slip through, travel a predetermined course, and return—then man’s dominion would be boundless.
It took six years from the first pilot models to the confidence that allowed McKenzie to send a manned ship to the stars. And now it was returning—in thirteen minutes, twelve, eleven. Minutes ticked tensely away, no one spoke. Jesperson, wearing headphones, was in contact with the main monitoring station at the far end of the field.
At five minutes before touchdown time Jesperson said, “They’ve sighted it clear and sharp. It’ll be here right on time.”
McKenzie moistened his lips, turning away so the others would not see a hint of tension on the Technarch’s face. Four minutes. Three. Two.
Jesperson was relaying the final countdown, and then the XV-ftl was there, arching down in a golden stream of flame, coming to rest in front of them, lowering its landing-jacks and stabilizers. The decontamination crew was swabbing down the field; the hatch was opening.
Men came forth.
Technarch McKenzie counted them. One, two, three, four, five. No casualties, then. At this distance, nearly a thousand yards, he could not make out individual faces; but five had gone to the stars, and five had returned. Their names formed a sort of jingle in the Technarch’s mind. Laurance, Peterszoon, Nakamura, Clive, Hernandez. Hernandez, Clive, Nakamura, Peterszoon, Laurance. Laurance, Peterszoon, Nakamura…
They were trudging across the field now toward the dome. As they came closer, McKenzie observed that three of them had grown beards. He remembered the day he had stood in this very room with them, making farewells that he quietly believed would be final ones. But they had returned.
The Technarch said to Jesperson, “Have the men brought up here right away.”
“Hearkening, Excellency,” Jesperson gabbled into a phone. Moments later, the door irised open and the crew of the XV-ftl entered: Laurance, Peterszoon, Nakamura, Clive, and Hernandez.
They looked tired, sallow-faced, sweaty. The beards belonged to Laurance, Peterszoon, and Clive. Nakamura’s face was clean-shaven, but his black hair hung dankly over his ears. Only Hernandez looked completely well-groomed. But all five men had the same weary, overstrung look.
McKenzie walked briskly toward them; his big hand seized Laurance’s limp, moist one. “Welcome back, Commander. All of you, welcome.”
“Obedience, Excellency. It’s—good to be back.”
“It was a successful trip?”
An expression of doubt crept into Laurance’s bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes. “Successful? Well, I suppose. The drive worked beautifully. We covered ninety-eight hundred light- years in the snap of a finger. But…”
Daviot whooped jubilantly. Leeson slapped Jesperson on the back. McKenzie said crisply, “But what?”
Laurance looked around the room. “It’s—it’s kind of classified, Technarch McKenzie. Maybe we’d better wait till later…”
“You can speak in the presence of these men,” McKenzie said.
“All right, then. We had a smooth trip. We ducked in and out of hyperspace and came out just where we wanted to be, and we got back home the same way. Only we met some aliens out there.”
“You met aliens?”
“Not really met. We saw them, and got the deuce away from there before they saw us. They were building a city, Excellency. It looked as if—as if they were colonizing that planet, just as we would do.”
TWO
Four hours later the entire Archonate convened at Archonate Center in an extraordinary meeting called by McKenzie. The thirteen men who ruled Earth and her network of dependent worlds foregathered in the Long Room, on the hundred-and-ninth story of the Center building.
They had come from every part of the world, summoned from their individual duties by McKenzie’s call, arraying themselves in their traditional places along the rectangular table. In the center of the table sat the Geoarch, old Ronholm, nominal first among the thirteen equals who comprised the Archonate. To Ronholm’s right sat the Technarch McKenzie. At the Georach’s left was Wissiner, Arcon of Communications. At Wissiner’s side of the table were Nelson, Archon of Education; Heimrich, Archon of Agriculture; Vornik, Archon of Health; Lestrade, Archon of Security; Dawson, Archon of Finance. To the right of McKenzie sat Klaus, Archon of Defense; Chang, Archon of the Colonies; Santelli, Archon of Transportation; Minek, Archon of Housing; Croy, Archon of Power.
As the Archon of technology, science, and research, McKenzie was the most important man in the room, but he observed protocol scrupulously; he permitted Geoarch Ronholm the first word.
“We have been called together into extraordinary session,” the old man quavered, “to hear of matters the Technarch considers of prime importance to the future welfare of our worlds. I relinquish the chair to the Archon of Technological Development.”
McKenzie spoke without rising. “Members of the Archonate, four hours ago a spaceship landed in Australia after completing a journey of nearly ten thousand light-years in less than a month—and of that month, better than three weeks were spent in exploration. The actual interstellar trip was virtually instantaneous. That would normally be occasion for great rejoicing; for now, the stars lie within the reach of us all, within our lifetimes. But there is a complicating factor. I call now on Dr. John Laurance, Commander of the XV-ftl which returned a short while ago, to explain the nature of this factor to us all.”
McKenzie gestured, and Laurance rose, a thin, tall figure, in the center of the room. The five crewmen of the faster-than-light ship sat facing the Archons, looking upward toward them as they sat at the dais.
The five had, so they said, been without sleep for better than thirty-six hours; but the Technarch had seen fit to call the extraordinary session of the Archonate at once, and so there had been no chance for Laurance and his men to rest. They had merely had time to trim their beards and hair, wash, and treat themselves with anti-fatigue stimulants, before getting the call to the Long Room.
Laurance came forward until he was within twenty feet of the Archons. He showed no great awe, merely the normal respect. He was a man of forty, with close-cropped hair just turning a grizzled gray, and a lean, bony face which just now reflected the many tensions of his recent trip. His eyes, pale gray, had a warm softness about them that belied the triphammer quickness of his mind and the catlike muscularity of his body.