r too faint, lay on the
other side of the sun. But there shone Sirius, just as bright as it had
glittered for the Greeks, and frosty Procyon, a little to the north.
Both orbs twinkled and beckoned, evoking strange and demanding dreams!

One day, Man would be able to make landings. Teams of scientists
outfitted to the eyebrows and trained to cope with any environment or
emergency, would explore unknown jungles, _llanos_, steppes; tramp up
and down fertile vales and hills under blue-hot alien suns. Perhaps,
they might even contact native species boasting human intelligence:
mammalian hunters and fishers, city-building lizards, sky-probing
arachnids--who knew what?

But now, of course, all that Headquarters permitted of flights was the
most furtive of reconnoitering. You hoisted your scout ship aloft under
high-gee, cleared the ecliptic, then swung out of normal space and
_jumped_. When you materialized in the new sector, you set your cameras
clicking, toggled all the other instruments into recording radiation,
gravity pressures, spectroscopy, at slam-bang speed. The very instant
your magnetic tapes got crammed to capacity, you pressed six dozen panic
buttons and scooted like a scared jackrabbit for Home, Sweet Home.

Adventure? It wasn't even mentioned on the travel posters, yet.

But, adventure would follow.

Some day.

Meanwhile, at the taxpayers' expense, you--the guardian of the
Peace--had enjoyed the billion-dollar thrill of viewing our Solar System
from light-years and light-years of distance. Or so the manual said,
right here on Insert Page 30-Dash-11-Dash-6.

Lance thought about those veteran hype-pilots who'd already poked around
in the great black Cold out there. How was it they were always
compensating for their frustration?

Now, he remembered.

Having few tall tales to spellbind audiences with when they swooped back
down on Home Base after their missions, the hype-pilots got around it by
bragging up Terra itself, and how at least you could always depend upon
good old Earth to come up with something to relax this Warp-Weary
generation!

"Something, for example, such as we now hold in our hand, brothers!"
Lance could hear them now. "Namely, one of these superbly-programmed
cocktails, as only Casey can turn out."

(Casey was the Officers Club barkeep and much-beribboned mixologist.)

"A real 'Casey Special'--look at its pristine beauty! What better
consolation can a man ask, for not having gotten