tion. Hyperspace drive!"

Quantrell laughed harshly. "Of all the cockeyed----"

"There you are," Alan said angrily. "First thing you do is laugh. A
spacewarp drive is just some hairbrained scheme to you. But haven't you
ever considered that Earth's scientists won't bother developing such a
drive for us if we don't care ourselves? They're just as happy the way
things are. _They_ don't have to worry about the Fitzgerald
Contraction."

"But there's been steady research on a hyperdrive, hasn't there? Ever
since Cavour, I thought."

"On and off. But they don't take it very seriously and they don't get
anywhere with it. If they'd really put some men to work they'd find
it--and then there wouldn't be any more Enclaves or any Fitzgerald
Contraction, and we starmen could live normal lives."

"And your brother--he wouldn't be cut off from his people the way he
is----"

"Sure. But you laughed instead of thinking."

Quantrell looked contrite. "Sorry. Guess I didn't put much jet behind my
think-machine that time. But a hyperdrive would wipe out the Enclave
system, wouldn't it?"

"Of course! We'd be able to come home from space and take a normal part
in Earth's life, instead of pulling away and segregating ourselves
here."

Alan looked up at the seemingly unreachable towers of the Earther city
just across the river from the Enclave. Somewhere out there was Steve.
And perhaps somewhere out there was someone he could talk to about the
hyperdrive, someone influential who might spur the needed research.

The Earther city seemed to be calling to him. It was a voice that was
hard to resist. He savagely jammed down deep inside him the tiny inner
voice that was trying to object. He turned, looking backward at the
dingy dreary buildings of the Enclave.

He looked then at Quantrell. "You said you've been wanting to break
loose. You want to get out of the Enclave, eh, Kevin?"

"Yes," Quantrell said slowly.

Alan felt excitement beginning to pound hard in the pit of his stomach.
"How'd you like to go outside there with me? See the Earther city?"

"You mean _jump ship_?"

The naked words, put just that bluntly, stung. "No," Alan said, thinking
of how his father's face had gone stony the time Alan had told him Steve
wasn't coming back. "I mean just going out for a day or so--a sort of
change of air. It's five days till the _Valhalla's_ due to blast off,
and you say the _Encounter_ is stuck here indefinitely. We could just go
fo