th the building of the Starship so near to
completion. That had been a month ago. Now Dan stared at the ship and
shook his head, uncomprehending.

The hull-plates were off again, lying in heaps on the ground in a
mammoth circle. The ship was a skeleton, a long, gawky structure of
naked metal beams. Even now a dozen men were scampering around the
scaffolding, before Dan's incredulous eyes, and he saw some of the
beaming coming _off_ the body of the ship, being dropped onto the
crane, moving slowly to the ground.

Ten years ago the ship had looked the same. As he watched, he felt a
wave of hopelessness sweep through him, a sense of desolate, empty
bitterness. Ten years--

His eyes met Terry Fisher's in the gloom of the car, begging to be
told it wasn't so. Fisher shook his head.

Then Dan said: "I think I've seen enough. Take me back to the air
field."

* * * * *

"It was the same thing on Mars," Fisher was telling him as the return
jet speared East into the dawn. "The refining and super-refining, the
slowing down, the changes in viewpoint and planning. I went up there
ready to beat the world barehanded, to work on the frontier, to build
that colony, and maybe lead another one. I even worked out the plans
for a break-away colony--we would need colony-builders when we went to
the stars, I thought." He shrugged sadly. "Carl told you, I guess.
They considered the break-away colony, carefully, and then Barness
decided it was really too early. Too much work already, with just one
colony. And there was, in a sense: frantic activity, noise, hubbub,
hard work, fancy plans--all going nowhere. No drive, no real
direction." He shrugged again. "I did a lot of drinking before they
threw me off Mars."

"Nobody saw it happening?"

"It wasn't the sort of thing you see. You could only _feel_ it. It
started when Armstrong came to the colony, rejuvenated, to take over
its development. And eventually, I think Armstrong did see it. That's
why he suicided."

"But the Starship," Dan cried. "It was almost built, and they were
_tearing it down_. I saw it with my own eyes."

"Ah, yes. For the twenty-seventh time, I think. A change in the
engineering thinking, that's all. Keller and Lijinsky suddenly came to
the conclusion that the whole thing might fall apart in midair at the
launching. Can you imagine it? When rockets have been built for years,
running to Mars every two months? But they could prove it