by space might very
well have been torn out of the most radiant layers of S-Doradus itself.

* * * * *

Hilton made the hundred yards from office door to curb in just over
twelve seconds. Larry was waiting. The car literally burned a hole in
the atmosphere as it screamed its way to Ardane Field.

It landed with a thump. Heavy black streaks of synthetic rubber marked
the pavement as it came to a screeching, shrieking stop at the
flagship's main lock. And, in the instant of closing that lock's outer
portal, all twenty-thousand-plus warships of the task force took off as
one at ten gravities. Took off, and in less than one minute went into
overdrive.

All personal haste was now over. Hilton went up into what he still
thought of as the "control room," even though he knew that there were no
controls, nor even any instruments, anywhere aboard. He knew what he
would find there. Fast as he had acted, Temple had not had as far to go
and she had got there first.

He could not have said, for the life of him, how he actually felt about
this direct defiance of his direct orders. He walked into the room, sat
down beside her and took her hand.

"I told you to stay home, Temple," he said.

"I know you did. But I'm not only the assistant head of your Psychology
Department. I'm your wife, remember? 'Until death do us part.' And if
there's any way in the universe I can manage it, death isn't going to
part us--at least, this one isn't. If this is it, we'll go together."

"I know, sweetheart." He put his arm around her, held her close. "As a
psych I wouldn't give a whoop. You'd be expendable. But as my wife,
especially now that you're pregnant, you aren't. You're a lot more
important to the future of our race than I am."

She stiffened in the circle of his arm. "What's _that_ crack supposed to
mean? Think I'd ever accept a synthetic zombie imitation of you for my
husband and go on living with it just as though nothing had happened?"

Hilton started to say something, but Temple rushed heedlessly on:
"_Drat_ the race! No matter how many children we ever have you were
first and you'll _stay_ first, and if you have to go I'll go, too, so
there! Besides, you know darn well that they can't duplicate whatever it
is that makes you Jarvis Hilton."

"Now wait a minute, Tempy. The conversion ..."

"Yes, the conversion," she interrupted, triumphantly. "The thing I'm
talking about is immaterial--untouchable--