, that all the pupils were standing up to leave. He
stood up and marched out.

When the signal for lights out came that night, Plato lay motionless for
a time in the dark, his mind racing far too rapidly for him to think of
sleep. He had plans to make. And after a time, when the dormitory
quieted down, he went to the well of knowledge for inspiration. He
slipped on his pair of goggles and threw the special switch he himself
had made. The infra-red light flared on, invisible to any one in the
room but himself, and he drew his book from its hiding place and resumed
his reading.

* * * * *

_The ship curvetted in space like a prancing steed. Panic-stricken by
the four-dimensional space-warp in which he was trapped, Rogue Rogan
stormed at his terrified followers. "By all the devils of the Coal
Sack," he shouted, "the man doesn't live who can take me alive! You'll
fight and die like men, you hen-hearted cowards...."_

* * * * *

But they didn't die like men. In fact, they didn't die at all, and Plato
permitted a slight sneer to play across his youthful features. Though he
considered himself a passionate admirer of Comets Carter, even he felt
dissatisfied with the story. When they were trapped, they were never
_really_ trapped. Comets Carter, sterling hero that he usually was,
always showed weakness of intellect at the last moment, giving his
deadly enemy an incredibly simple way out, one that Comets had, in his
own incredibly simple way, overlooked.

Plato would never be guilty of such stupidity. He himself--and now _he_
was Comets Carter, a quicker-thinker, smarter Carter, dealing out to
Rogue Rogan a retribution many eons overdue. He was whistling through
space at ten light-speeds. He was compressing light-centuries into a
single second. He was--

He had just time to slip the goggles from his face before his eyes
closed in sleep.

* * * * *

During the day, he continued to make his plans. There was a spaceport a
hundred and forty miles away. At night, if the students poked their
heads out of the window, they could see the distant ships as points of
flame racing away into the darkness, like shooting stars in reverse. He
would steal out of his room in the night, take a glider-train to the
spaceport, and stow away. It would be as simple as that.

Of course, he needed money. He might travel at half fare, but even that
woul