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illustrated diagrams of the ship. Imagine their expressions, Limpkin, when you start to describe the dimensions of the ship in miles instead of mere feet. And then they will look about them, at the same land and a new thought will arise: escape from this World where before the only escape had been death.
    "Your men must be skilled, Limpkin. They must speak like prophets and engrave this silver fantasy upon those torpid, withered brains. And if your Office is skillful, every time a peasant looks at the land his eyes will rise to the sky, and at night they will stand out under the stars for hours, dreaming of their new destiny; they will not make it, you must tell them that, nor will their sons, but someday their seed and their spirits will be freed from the shackles of this dismal prison.
    " 'Where will my son's son go?' they will ask. It hardly matters what you answer. Use your ingenuity, but make sure the story is always the same. Legend has it that men, before the end of the First World, journeyed to the stars; pick a star, dream up a planet green and golden in the light of its young sun. Tell them that there are homes and factories and roads there, left behind and carefully preserved when the dying First World called its children home in a last effort to save itself. Paragon, Harbor, Home, name it whatever your Office chooses, but make it a paradise, and one as filled with man-made wonders as those of nature, for my psychologists tell me that if the people are told that their new world is ready for instant, comfortable occupation with a minimum of struggle, it will be all that more desirable. A world fit for the habitation of men, and nothing less.
    "So the people will set to work with the monstrous shadow of the ship, graceful as a cormorant and powerful as an awakened god, casting the hideous Earth into servile darkness. But here is where the ship will begin her betrayal. The dam will be, if my and many others' estimation of human nature is correct, completed and the eight power lines will stretch to the southeast. Here is where your Office will move in. Only two lines will eventually reach the ship; the other six will be diverted into an area that truly needs them. Their places will be taken by empty dummy cables. And if anyone ever asks about any of this, simply tell them that it is 'for the ship.'
    "As more and more of these efforts are diverted back into the nation, the land will become more bearable and more profitable. At first there will be a steadily ascending curve of work, then a zenith will be reached when the people finally begin to realize that the previously unyielding land has changed. As the land grows richer and richer, interest in the ship will taper off, for now the people's will to power will have awakened and fed upon a sufficient quantity of simple hope to allow it to live and grow.
    "So you see that the ship's ultimate aim is to become a half-finished hulk. Her reality will be in her building, not in any never-to-be-taken trip into space.
    "Who knows"—Toriman drew deeply on his cigar; firelight glinted off his golden ring—"perhaps someday, when the World has grown a great deal more like the First World, the ship will be completed. But then it will rise from the World in the spirit of adventure and not as a beaten fugitive."
    For at least a minute neither man spoke. The General had outlined the battle plan and now his chosen lieutenant tried to digest its essentials. Another minute passed; Toriman's gaze drifted to the map and stopped over the tangled northern coastline. At last Limpkin spoke. "Seven miles long; seven miles long and three wide . . . "
    Toriman chuckled with satisfaction. "Exactly, my good civil servant, seven miles long. Think of it! Seven miles by three miles! Think of it blotting out half the sky while thirty thousand feet up; see it rumbling down its ways to meet the Sea, for no runway possible could ever support its weight. And think, Limpkin, as will the people, of a day