I repeated to Pat what the Captain was saying practically as fast as he said it; this was one of the things we had practiced while he was at the training center: letting your directed thoughts echo what somebody else was saying so that a telepair acted almost like a microphone and a speaker. I suppose he was doing the same at the other end, echoing the Captain's words to the family a split second behind me-it's not hard with practice.

The Captain said, "The Henry is on her final run-down ... ten seconds... five seconds... now!"

I saw something like heat lightning even though I was in a closed room. For a few seconds there was a sound over the speaker like sleet on a window, soft and sibilant and far away. Pat said, "Boy!"

("What is it, Pat?")

"She got up out of there as if she had sat on a bee. Just a hole in the water and a flash of light. Wait a sec-they're shifting the view pick-up from the space station to Luna."

("You've got a lot better view than I have. All I can see is the ceiling of this room.")

The female voice said, "Mr. Warner! Miss Furtney! Tween-ships telepairs start recording."

The Captain said, "All hands, ready for boost. Stand by for count down," and another voice started in, "Sixty seconds... fifty-five... fifty... forty-five... holding on-forty-five... holding forty-five.....olding... holding..."

—until I was ready to scream.

"Tom, what's wrong?"

("How should I know?")

"Forty... thirty-five ... thirty..."

"Tom, Mum wants me to tell you to be very careful."

("What does she think I can do? I'm just lying here, strapped down.")

"I know." Pat chuckled. "Hang on tight to the brush, you lucky stiff; they are about to take away the ladder."

"... four!... Three!... Two!... ONE!"

I didn't see a flash, I didn't hear anything. I simply got very heavy—like being on the bottom of a football pile-up.

"There's nothing but steam where you were."

I didn't answer, I was having trouble breathing.

"They've shifted the pick-up. They're following you with a telephoto now. Tom, you ought to see this... you look just like a sun. It burns the rest of the picture right out of the tank."

("How can I see it?") I said crossly. ("I'm in it.')

"You sound choked up. Are you all right?"

("You'd sound choked, too, if you had sand bags piled across your chest.")

"Is it bad?"

("It's not good. But it's all right, I guess.")

Pat let up on me and did a right good job of describing what he was seeing by television. The Richard E. Byrd took off just after we did, before we had finished the high boost to get escape velocity from Earth; he told me all about it. I didn't have anything to say anyhow; I couldn't see anything and I didn't feel like chattering. I just wanted to hold still and feel miserable.

I suppose it was only six minutes but it felt more like an hour. After a long, long time, when I had decided the controls were jammed and we were going to keep on at high boost until we passed the speed of light, the pressure suddenly relaxed and I felt light as a snowflake... if it hadn't been for the straps I would have floated up to the ceiling.

"We have reduced to one hundred and ten per cent of one gravity," the Captain said cheerfully. "Our cruising boost will be higher, but we will give the newcomers among us a while to get used to it." His tone changed and he said briskly, "All stations, secure from blast-off and set space watches, third section."

I loosened my straps and sat up and then stood up. Maybe we were ten per cent heavy, but it did not feel like it; I felt fine. I started for the door, intending to look around more than I had been able to when I came aboard.

Dusty Rhodes yelled at me. "Hey! Come back here and unstrap me! That moron fastened the buckles out of my reach."

I turned and looked at him. "Say 'please.'"

What Dusty answered was not "please." Nevertheless I let him loose. I should have made him say it; it might have saved trouble later.

VII 19,900 WAYS

The first thing that happened in the L.C. made me think I was dreaming—I ran into Uncle Steve.

I was walking along the circular passageway that joined the staterooms on my deck and looking for the passage inboard, toward the axis of the ship. As I turned the comer I bumped into someone. I said, "Excuse me," and started to go past when the other person grabbed my arm and clapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and it was Uncle Steve, grinning and shouting at me. "Hi, shipmate! Welcome aboard!"

"Uncle Steve! What are you doing here?"

"Special assignment from the General Staff... to keep you out of trouble."

"Huh?"

There was no mystery when he explained. Uncle Steve had known for a month that his application for special discharge to take service with the LRF for Project Lebensraum had been approved; he had not told the family but had spent the time working a swap to permit him to be in the same ship as Pat—or, as it turned out, the one I was in.

"I thought your mother might take it easier if she knew I was keeping an eye on her boy. You can tell her about it the next time you are hooked in with your twin."

"I'll tell her now," I answered and gave a yell in my mind for Pat. He did not seem terribly interested; I guess a reaction was setting in and he was sore at me for being where he had expected to be. But Mother was there and he said he would tell her. "Okay, she knows."

Uncle Steve looked at me oddly. "Is it as easy as that?"

I explained that it was just like talking... a little faster, maybe, since you can think words faster than you can talk, once you are used to it. But he stopped me. "Never mind. You're trying to explain color to a blind man. I just wanted Sis to know."

"Well, okay." Then I noticed that his uniform was different. The ribbons were the same and it was an LRF company uniform, like my own, which did not surprise me—but his chevrons were gone: "Uncle Steve... you're wearing major's leaves!"

He nodded. "Home town boy makes good. Hard work, clean living, and so on."

"Gee, that's swell!"

"They transferred me at my reserve rank, son, plus one bump for exceptionally neat test papers. Fact is, if I had stayed with the Corps, I would have retired as a ship's sergeant at best—there's no promotion in peacetime. But the Project was looking for certain men, not certain ranks, and I happened to have the right number of hands and feet for the job."

"Just what is your job, Uncle?"

"Commander of the ship's guard."

"Huh? What have you got to guard?"

"That's a good question. Ask me in a year or two and I can give you a better answer. Actually, 'Commander Landing Force' would be a better title. When we locate a likely looking planet—'when and if,' I mean—I'm the laddie who gets to go out and check the lay of the land and whether the natives are friendly while you valuable types stay safe and snug in the ship." He glanced at his wrist. "Let's go to chow."

I wasn't hungry and wanted to look around, but Uncle Steve took me firmly by the arm and headed for the mess room. "When you have soldiered as long as I have, lad, you will learn that you sleep when you get a chance and that you are never late for chow line."

It actually was a chow line, cafeteria style. The L.C. did not run to table waiters nor to personal service of any sort, except for the Captain and people on watch. We went through the line and I found that I was hungry after all. That meal only, Uncle Steve took me ever to the heads-of-departments table. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is my nephew with two heads, Tom Bartlett. He left his other head dirtside—he's a telepair twin. If he does anything he shouldn't, don't tell me, just clobber him." He glanced at me; I was turning red. "Say 'howdy,' son... or just nod if you can't talk."