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that will never come, when they will file into the cabins and leave the world behind them. Then the thunder, the Sea thrown into confusion, its surface boiling from the engines' breath. Slowly, very slowly at first, she will start to move; then faster with a tidal wave wake trailing aft. Then up into the air, the shock wave of compressed air traveling before her like a terrible herald, flattening mountains." Again the stillness.
    Limpkin finally roused himself. "I find your scheme entirely impractical."
    "We are in an impractical position."
    "My mind refuses to accept the sheer size of the thing. But then my imagination takes over, with a vengeance in this case. Could we not just use the pretense of building the ship?"
    "I admit that it would be more inexpensive, but no, I'm afraid that the ship must be built. Perhaps a man of your stature, one who has read some of the First World and now knows that the stories of its might are true, can be excited merely by the idea of the ship. But here we are trying to inspire the slow-minded, dull, witless people, and several generations of them at that. They must be able to go to the Yards and come back to their godforsaken villages and tell of the glory and power of the ship. The Yards are many leagues from here and you can be sure that with every step the pilgrim travels back toward his home, the ship will grow just that much more magnificent. The ship, the ship, the ship, this must be their only thought until the land begins to bend, as it must, to their will."
    "The ship could easily become a god," intoned Limpkin as the thought grew in him.
    "Only if she grows too fast. Only if she absorbs the imagination instead of merely capturing it. That is the job of your Office."
    Limpkin now turned to the painting of the ship. "And her name?" he inquired, not raising his eyes.
    " Victory. "
    " Victory, Victory . . . " Limpkin repeated. "And I suppose that your psychologists dreamed that up too."
    "Of course. That and much more." Toriman walked over to one of the thin map drawers that, twenty deep, ran along each wall; he flipped out the end of a blueprint and a sheet of mathematical notations, normal numbers and symbols ranged beside an apparently corresponding row of rune-figures. "The ship," said Toriman, gesturing at the rest of the library, "and the knowledge to build and sail her."
    Limpkin sensed that the audience was over. He put on his coat and waited for a sign from Toriman. "I hope that I have not kept you too long, Limpkin. Here, I'll walk you to the gate." Toriman produced a fur-collared jacket with the silver piping of a field officer.
    When they had reached the main courtyard, between the two walls, Limpkin could see that dawn was growing beyond the distant city. One of the general's carriages, complete with footmen and heavy chasseur escort, was waiting.
    As Limpkin boarded the coach, he turned again to the east to see the clouds of a young snow storm already shrouding the sun. "A dark dawn," he observed with as much dignity as he could summon up at that early hour.
    "Perhaps others will be brighter," Toriman rejoined. "Many others besides myself have had a hand in this plan, Limpkin. Many more able and knowing than either you or I shall ever be; we are not alone in this, and we never shall be."
    A footman shut the door and the convoy rumbled out of Caltroon and down to the River Road.
    About a mile from the castle, while adjusting his blanket and warming pan, Limpkin came upon a present from the General. It was a small model of the Victory, wrought from solid silver, and beautiful detailed. Limpkin held it up to the feeble light of dawn until they reached the city walls; seven miles!

II
    For a week after that the work piled up on Limpkin's desk as the miniature Victory flew on a thousand imaginary voyages to a million different worlds. And at the end of each trip, when the great starship had been moored in a turquoise bay, a party was sent ashore only to find that the new