n they were gone....

* * * * *

Just darkness now. Darkness and soundless emptiness. But as he stared at
intervals through another long night of his human consciousness, Lee
seemed to feel that the emptiness out there was dwindling--a finite
emptiness. He noticed, presently, that the size-change pointers had
stopped their movement; the ultimate size of the globe had been reached.
The figures of the Light-year dials were meaningless to his
comprehension. The velocity was meaningless. And now another little set
of dials were in operation. A thousand--something--of distance. There
was a meaningless word which named the unit. A thousand Earth-miles, if
he had been in his former size? The pointer marked nine hundred in a
moment. Was it, perhaps, the distance now from their destination?

Vivian was beside him. "Lee, what's gonna happen to us? Won't this come
to an end some time? Lee--you won't let anybody hurt me?"

She was like a child, almost always clinging to him now. And suddenly
she said a very strange thing. "Lee, I been thinkin'--back there on
Earth I was doin' a lot of things that maybe were pretty rotten--anglin'
for his money for instance--an' not carin' much what I had to do to get
it." She gestured at the sullen Franklin who was sitting on the couch.
"You know--things like that. An' I been thinkin'--you suppose, when we
get where we're goin' now, that'll be held against me?"

What a queer thing to say! She was like a child--and so often a child
has an insight into that which is hidden from those more mature!

"I--don't know," Lee muttered.

From the couch, Franklin looked up moodily. "Whispering about me again?
I know you are--damn you both. You and everybody else here."

"We're not interested in you," Vivian said.

"Oh, you're not? Well you were, back on Earth. I'm not good enough for
you now, eh? He's better--because he's big--big and strong--that the
idea? Well if I ever had the chance--"

"Don't be silly," Lee said.

* * * * *

The sullen Franklin was working himself into a rage. Lee seemed to
understand Franklin better now. A weakling. Inherently, with a complex
of inferiority, the vague consciousness of it lashing him into baffled
anger.

"You, Anthony," Franklin burst out, "don't think you've been fooling me.
You can put it over that fool girl, but not me. I'm onto you."

"Put what over?" Lee said mildly.

"That you don't know