uld know your onions now, if you're ever going to. Best of
luck, son."

"Thank you, colonel."

Lance turned. "Good-by, Carolyn. Just four weeks now, like I said."

"I'll be waiting."

"First jump's always the hardest, I hear," spoke up the second aide,
cheerily. Like a great many other execs, the officer boasted no active
space rating, though he did wear the winged moons of an observer.

But Lance and Carolyn were again quite busy, and did not hear.

* * * * *

Inside the shell of the _Cosmos XII_, Lance, sitting flat on his back
against gravity, looked up at the sweep hands on the control deck clocks
and hurried through his pre-jump check list. Tension mounted inside him.
He contacted the Operations people in the bunker over the radio net.
Colonel Sagen's voice came in clear: "Five minutes, Lance."

"I am receiving. Area cleared?"

Traffic broke into report: "Take-off will proceed on schedule."

The function lights on the "tree" in front of Lance shone green. Gyros
were caged; the tapes were set to roll. Lance's big hands hovered
lightly near the manual over-rides. He was ready to fly, and the
autopilot lights were already winking out in count-down. But you never
could be sure until the last moment.

What had Carolyn been trying to tell him?

Before he could pursue the thought, he felt the pressure of the rising
ship take hold; gently at first as she cleared the ground; then heavier
and heavier, until his face felt like a rubber mask under the
acceleration and his heart commenced pounding.

It didn't take long these days for any ship to build up a tremendous
velocity in space. Lance cleared the ecliptic by a hundred million
miles; then with the Solar System spread out flat below him, he opened
up his flight orders. His destination, he discovered, was Groombridge
34, a visual double star. Right ascension: zero hours, thirteen minutes.
Declination: forty-three and four-tenths degrees. Nearly twelve
light-years distant.

Since the star's apparent location was nearly halfway up the sky from
the celestial equator, Lance could begin the jump any time and not worry
on his way about skewing too near the gravitational field of any
large-massed body in his own immediate vicinity.

He permitted himself one brief glance at the blazing universe that hung
all about him: the bright fixed lights that were innumerable suns
against an eternal blackness, and the luminous dust in between th