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dull ache in his breast, the vague inchoate yearning for his lost heritage of open sky and stars, was never to be silenced, even though he was yet too ignorant to be aware of it at the top of his mind. "What was it?" he asked in a hushed voice.
           "That's it," answered Joe. "That's the world. That's the universe. That's what I've been trying to tell you about."
           Hugh tried furiously to force his inexperienced mind to comprehend. "That's what you mean by Outside?" he asked. "All those beautiful little lights?"
           "Sure," said Joe, "only they aren't little. They're a long way off, you see—maybe thousands of miles."
           What?"  
           "Sure, sure," Joe persisted. "There's lots of room out there. Space. It's big. Why, some of those stars may be as big as the Ship—maybe bigger."
           Hugh's face was a pitiful study in overstrained imagination. "Bigger than the Ship?" he repeated. "But— but—"
           Jim tossed his head impatiently and said to Joe, "Wha' d' I tell you? You're wasting our time on this lunk. He hasn't got the capacity—"
           "Easy, Jim," Joe answered mildly; "don't expect him to run before he can crawl. It took us a long time. I seem to remember that you were a little slow to believe your own eyes."
           "That's a lie," said Jim nastily. "You were the one that had to be convinced."
           "O.K., O.K.," Joe conceded, "let it ride. But it was a long time before we both had it all straight."
           Hoyland paid little attention to the exchange between the two brothers. It was a usual thing; his attention was centered on matters decidedly not usual. "Joe," he asked, "what became of the Ship while we were looking at the stars? Did we stare right through it?"
           "Not exactly," Joe told him. "You weren't looking directly at the stars at all, but at a kind of picture of them. It's like—Well, they do it with mirrors, sort of. I've got a book that tells about it."
           "But you can see 'em directly," volunteered Jim, his momentary pique forgotten. "There's a compartment forward of here—"
           "Oh, yes," put in Joe, "it slipped my mind. The Captain's veranda. 'S got one all of glass; you can look right out."
           "The Captain's veranda? But—"
           "Not this Captain. He's never been near the place. That's the name over the door of the compartment."
           "What's a Veranda'?"  
           "Blessed if I know. It's just the name of the place."  
           "Will you take me up there?"  
           Joe appeared to be about to agree, but Jim cut in. "Some other time. I want to get back—I'm hungry."  
           They passed back through the tube, woke up Bobo, and made the long trip back down.
     
           It was long before Hugh could persuade Joe-Jim to take him exploring again, but the time intervening was well spent. Joe-Jim turned him loose on the largest collection of books that Hugh had ever seen. Some of them were copies of books Hugh had seen before, but even these he read with new meanings. He read incessantly, his mind soaking up new ideas, stumbling over them, struggling, striving to grasp them. He begrudged sleep, he forgot to eat until his breath grew sour and compelling pain in his midriff forced him to pay attention to his body. Hunger satisfied, he would be back at it until his head ached and his eyes refused to focus.
           Joe-Jim's demands for service were few. Although Hugh was never off duty, Joe-Jim did not mind his reading as long as he was within earshot and ready to jump when called. Playing checkers with one of the pair when the other did not care to play was the service which used up the most time, and even this was not a total loss, for, if the player were Joe, he could almost always be diverted into a discussion of the Ship, its history, its machinery and equipment, the sort of people who had built it and