stars nor patterns of
heavenly bodies. The brightly-shining sun was very evidently not their
familiar Sol.

"Well--we went _somewhere_ ... but not to Alpha Centauri, not much to
our surprise." James gulped twice; then went on, speaking almost
jauntily now that the attempt had been made and had failed. "So now it's
up to you, Clee, as Director of Project Gunther and captain of the good
ship _Pleiades_, to boss the more-or-less simple--more, I hope--job of
getting us back to Tellus."

* * *

Science, both physical and paraphysical, had done its best. Gunther's
Theorems, which define the electromagnetic and electrogravitic
parameters pertaining to the annihilation of distance, had been studied,
tested, and applied to the full. So had the Psionic Corollaries; which,
while not having the status of paraphysical laws, do allow computation
of the qualities and magnitudes of the stresses required for any given
application of the Gunther Effect.

The planning of the starship _Pleiades_ had been difficult in the
extreme; its construction almost impossible. While it was practically a
foregone conclusion that any man of the requisite caliber would already
be a member of the Galaxian Society, the three planets and eight
satellites were screened, psionicist by psionicist, to select the two
strongest and most versatile of their breed.

These two, Garlock and James, were heads of departments of, and under
iron-clad contract to, vast Solar System Enterprises, Inc., the only
concern able and willing to attempt the building of the first starship.

Alonzo P. Ferber, Chancellor of SSE, however, would not risk a
tenth-piece of the company's money on such a bird-brained scheme.
Himself a Gunther First, he believed implicitly that Firsts were in fact
tops in Gunther ability; that these few self-styled "Operators" and
"Prime Operators" were either charlatans or self-deluded crackpots.
Since he could not feel that so-called "Operator Field," no such thing
did or could exist. No Gunther starship could ever, possibly, work.

He did loan Garlock and James to the Galaxians, but that was as far as
he would go. For salaries and for labor, for research and material, for
trials and for errors; the Society paid and paid and paid.

Thus the starship _Pleiades_ had cost the Galaxian Society almost a
thousand million credits.

Garlock and James had worked on the ship since its inception. They were
to be of the crew; fo