Brunei. "The Spaceport! We all remember the
Spaceport."

"We're back on Earth! The Spaceport!"

"Earth!"

"_Earth!_"

"EARTH! EARTH!"

The garden was beginning to flicker. It became red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, violet, invisible; then back again through the spectrum
the other way--violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, invisible.

Back and forth, like a pendulum through the spectrum....

Oliver Brunei's head hurt unbearably, he could see the pain on the
other faces, but he allowed only one thought to fill his
being--_Earth! The Spaceport! EARTH!_

More and more, faster and faster, the garden flickered, and now it was
the old common room again, and _that_ was flickering.

Light was flickering, mind was flickering, time, too, seemed to
flicker....

_Only Earth!_ thought Brunei. Earth doesn't flicker, the Spaceport
doesn't flicker.

Earth! EARTH!

Now all the flickerings, of color, time, mind and dimensions, were
coalescing into one gigantic vortex, that was a thing neither of time,
nor space, nor mind, but all three somehow fused into one....

They're screaming! Brunei thought. Listen to the horrible screams!
Suddenly he noticed that he, too, was screaming.

The vortex was growing, swirling, undulating, and it, too, began to
flicker....

There was an unbearable, impossible pain, and....

* * * * *

The sight of starship Number Thirteen suddenly appearing out of
nowhere, and sitting itself calmly down in the middle of the Spaceport
was somewhat disconcerting to the Spaceport officials. Especially
since at the very moment it appeared, and even afterward, they
continued to have visual and laser contact with its image, over three
light-months from Earth.

However, the Solar Government itself was much more pragmatic. One
instant, starship Thirteen had been light-months from Earth, the next
it was sitting in the Spaceport. Therefore, starship Thirteen had
exceeded the speed of light somehow. Therefore, it was possible to
exceed the speed of light, and a thorough examination of the ship and
its contents would show _how_.

Therefore.... You idiots, throw a security cordon around that ship!

In such matters, the long-conditioned reflexes of the Solar Government
worked marvelously. Before the air-waves had cooled, two hundred
heavily armed soldiers had surrounded the ship.

Two hours later, the Solar co-ordinator was on the scene, with ten
Orders of Sol to presen