ide his helmet had been too unpleasant to
repeat.

Sometimes Russell thought of other things besides his growing hatred
of the old man. Sometimes he thought about the ship, lost back there
in the void, and he wondered if wrecked space ships were ever found.
Compared with the universe in which one of them drifted, a wrecked
ship was a lot smaller than a grain of sand on a nice warm beach back
on Earth, or one of those specks of silver dust that floated like
strange seeds down the night winds of Venus.

And a human was smaller still, thought Russell when he was not hating
Dunbar. Out here, a human being is the smallest thing of all. He
thought then of what Dunbar would say to such a thought, how Dunbar
would laugh that high piping squawking laugh of his and say that the
human being was bigger than the Universe itself.

Dunbar had a big answer for every little thing.

When the four of them had escaped from that prison colony on a
sizzling hot asteroid rock in the Ronlwhyn system, that wasn't enough
for Dunbar. Hell no--Dunbar had to start talking about a place they
could go where they'd never be apprehended, in a system no one else
had ever heard of, where they could live like gods on a green soft
world like the Earth had been a long time back.

And Dunbar had spouted endlessly about a world of treasure they would
find, if they would just follow old Dunbar. That's what all four of
them had been trying to find all their lives in the big cold grabbag
of eternity--a rich star, a rich far fertile star where no one else
had ever been, loaded with treasure that had no name, that no one had
ever heard of before. And was, because of that, the richest treasure
of all.

We all look alike out here in these big rocket pressure suits, Russell
thought. No one for God only knew how many of millions of light years
away could see or care. Still--we might have a chance to live, even
now, Russell thought--if it weren't for old crazy Dunbar.

They might have a chance if Alvar and Johnson weren't so damn lacking
in self-confidence as to put all their trust in that crazed old
rum-dum. Russell had known now for some time that they were going in
the wrong direction. No reason for knowing. Just a hunch. And Russell
was sure his hunch was right.

* * * * *

Russell said. "Look--look to your left and to your right and behind
us. Four suns. You guys see those other three suns all around you,
don't you?"

"