gan to clear. What _had_ happened? Something, a
crash, a terrible coldness--

Kieran began to shiver. He had been in Section T2, on his way to the
lock, and suddenly the floor had risen under him and Wheel Five had
seemed to crash into pieces around him. The cold, the pain--

_You're in a starship. You're all right._

For God's sake why did his mind keep telling him things like that,
things he believed? For if he did not believe them he would be in a
panic, not knowing where he was, how he had come here. There was panic
in his mind but there was a barrier against it, the barrier of the
soothing reassurances that came from he knew not where.

He tried to sit up. It was useless, he was too weak. He lay, breathing
heavily. He felt that he should be hysterical with fear but somehow he
was not, that barrier in his mind prevented it.

He had decided to try shouting when a door in the side of the little
room slid open and a man came in.

He came over and looked down at Kieran. He was a young man,
sandy-haired, with a compact, chunky figure and a flat, hard face. His
eyes were blue and intense, and they gave Kieran the feeling that this
man was a wound-up spring. He looked down and said,

"How do you feel, Kieran?"

Kieran looked up at him. He asked, "Am I in a starship?"

"Yes."

"But there aren't any starships."

"There are. You're in one." The sandy-haired man added, "My name is
Vaillant."

_It's true, what he says_, murmured the something in Kieran's mind.

"Where--how--" Kieran began.

Vaillant interrupted his stammering question. "As to where, we're quite
a way from Earth, heading right now in the general direction of Altair.
As to how--" He paused, looking keenly down at Kieran. "Don't you know
how?"

_Of course I know. I was frozen, and now I have been awakened and time
has gone by--_

Vaillant, looking searchingly down at his face, showed a trace of
relief. "You do know, don't you? For a moment I was afraid it hadn't
worked."

He sat down on the edge of the bunk.

"How long?" asked Kieran.

Vaillant answered as casually as though it was the most ordinary
question in the world. "A bit over a century."

* * * * *

It was wonderful, thought Kieran, how he could take a statement like
that without getting excited. It was almost as though he'd known it all
the time.

"How--" he began, when there was an interruption.

Something buzzed thinly in the pocket of Vaill