kknifing double, she put both forearms flat on the carpet and lifted
both legs into the vertical. Then, silver slippers pointing motionlessly
ceilingward, she got up onto her hands and walked twice around a vacant
chair. She then performed a series of flips that would have done credit
to a professional acrobat; the finale of which left her sitting calmly
in the previously empty seat.

"See?" she informed the flabbergasted stewardess. "I _could_ do it, and
I didn't...."

Her voice was drowned out in a yell of approval as everybody who could
clap their hands did so with enthusiasm. "More!" "Keep it up, gal!" "Do
it again!"

"Oh, I didn't do that to show off!" Barbara Warner flushed hotly as she
met the eyes of the nearby spectators. "Honestly I didn't--I just _had_
to know if I could." Then, as the applause did not die down, she fairly
scampered out of the room.

* * * * *

For one hour before the _Procyon's_ departure from Earth and for three
hours afterward, First Officer Carlyle Deston, Chief Electronicist, sat
attentively at his board. He was five feet eight inches tall and weighed
one hundred sixty-two pounds net. Just a little guy, as spacemen go.
Although narrow-waisted and, for his heft, broad-shouldered, he was
built for speed and maneuverability, not to haul freight.

Watching a hundred lights and half that many instruments, listening to
two phone circuits, one with each ear, and hands moving from switches to
rheostats to buttons and levers, he was completely informed as to the
instant-by-instant status of everything in his department.

Although attentive, he was not tense, even during the countdown. The
only change was that at the word "Two" his right forefinger came to rest
upon a red button and his eyes doubled their rate of scan. If anything
in his department had gone wrong, the _Procyon_'s departure would have
been delayed.

And again, well out beyond the orbit of the moon, just before the
starship's mighty Chaytor engines hurled her out of space as we know it
into that unknowable something that is hyperspace, he poised a finger.
But Immergence, too, was normal; all the green lights except one went
out, needles dropped to zero, both phones went dead, all signals
stopped. He plugged a jack into a socket below the one remaining green
light and spoke:

"Procyon One to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio Test
One. How do you read me, Control Six?"

"Co