r fellow men, and of a more complex kind. That is all.

"The essence of our science is a relentless personal yearning to know
and understand the Universe. And in that, the scientist must not be
forbidden to ask whatever question occurs to him. The moment we put any
restraint upon our fields of inquiry, or set bounds to the realms of our
mental aspirations, our science ceases to exist and becomes a mere
opportunist technology."

Markham stood up, his face red with exasperation and rage. "No one is
trying to limit you! Why is that so unfathomable to your minds? You are
being offered a boundless expanse, and you continue to make inane
complaints of limitations. The Rykes have been over all the territory
you insist on exploring. They can tell you the number of pretty pebbles
and empty shells that lie there. You are like children insistent upon
exploring every shadowy corner and peering behind every useless bush on
a walk through the forest.

"Such is to be expected of a child, but not of an adult, who is capable
of taking the word of one who has been there before!"

"There are two things wrong with your argument," said Hockley. "First of
all, there is no essential difference between the learning of a child
who must indeed explore the dark corners and strange growths by which he
passes--there is no difference between this and the probing of the
scientist, who must explore the Universe with his own senses and with
his own instruments, without taking another's word that there is nothing
there worth seeing.

"Secondly, the Rykes themselves are badly in error in asserting that
they have been along the way ahead of us. They have not. In all their
fields of science they have limited themselves badly to one narrow field
of probability. They have taken a narrow path stretching between
magnificent vistas on either side of them, and have deliberately ignored
all that was beyond the path and on the inviting side trails."

"Is there anything wrong with that?" demanded Markham. "If you undertake
a journey you don't weave in and out of every possible path that leads
in every direction opposed to your destination. You take the direct
route. Or at least _ordinary_ people do."

"Scientists do, too," said Hockley, "when they take a journey.
Professional science is not a journey, however. It's an exploration.

"There is a great deal wrong with what the Rykes have done. They have
assumed, and would have us likewise assume, that there is