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for it, Chiram and Bob Galt and Julius, when he finally told them; there would be jocular comment, chaffing—and, of course, that bull-headed Chiram would walk around with his neck stiff. Nevertheless he’d have Jay to thank for bringing them home; he’d have to back down, admit himself wrong…And if the story happened to leak out—Jay’s vision soared. Newspapers, television, cheers from crowded streets…
    Jay rose to his feet. Chiram lay in his bunk asleep, his feet in white socks neatly placed one on the other.
    Jay glanced across the cabin. It was nominally Galt’s watch; he sat absorbed in his game, with one hand crooked over his queen. Julius, his brow furrowed, was wiping at his mouth with a big yellow hand.
    Jay sauntered across the room, climbed the three steps to the bridge deck, nonchalantly leaned across the chart table, watching the view on the forward screen. Black space, the galaxies like luminous jellyfish in a midnight ocean. They floated in from far ahead, drifted effortlessly past, the near ones sliding over the far ones in an implausible shift of perspective.
    The sight was soothing, hypnotic, dreamlike in its silent majesty…Behind him Julius laughed. Jay blinked, straightened, came back to himself. He looked cautiously toward the controls, in a railed box to his right. Only Chiram was supposed to enter the box. He peered out the side vision panel. Tuck, the partner ship, was naturally invisible, flitting back and forth across Nip in the constant acceleration. Jay glanced at the computer dial for their speed: already 6,200 l.y.p.s. and steadily mounting. He turned his attention back to the controls. There it was—a bright knurled knob. A mere touch, and the spacer beams would weaken infinitesimally on one side, to twist the axis on which the two ships rode.
    He took a casual step toward the control box, darted out his arm, touched the knob…A great blow fell on his shoulder. He reeled back, sank to the deck. He became aware of three pairs of legs, heard a harsh unsympathetic voice: “I’ve been waiting for a trick like this ever since he showed me that fool machine of his.”
    “He’s just an addled kid,” came Julius’ voice, light, careless.
    Bob Galt’s feet moved abruptly, turned half away.
    Chiram said in the same harsh voice, “Pick him up, take him to his bunk, chain his ankle to the stanchion…Julius, you throw a plaster on the bullet-hole. Can’t trust a lunatic like that at large.”
    Jay had nothing to complain of. Julius was careful with his wound; his big, taffy-colored hands moved quickly, gently; his grin never vanished.
    He was fed from a tray, and released to use the latrine. These were the only attentions he received. What sluggish life there was in the ship flowed on and past him. His presence was ignored, no one spoke, he spoke to no one.
    From his bunk he could see the length of the ship and all that happened aboard: Julius and Bob Galt at their interminable chess; Julius facing him, rubbing his big flat face with a hand when puzzled or preoccupied, Galt sitting crouched over the board with only the hard angles of his profile showing. Chiram played no more cards or chess; his sole diversion was a slow pacing up and down the cabin with half an hour’s work at an exerciser morning and night.
    The picture became utterly familiar to Jay. It was changeless, uniform. The same colors, the same pattern of shadows, the same pragmatic thud to Chiram’s tread, the same grin on Julius’ face, the same slope to Galt’s shoulders.
    The ship had plunged into darkness. There were no more galaxies, no more nebulae. “We’ve evidently passed the outer fringe of the exploding universe,” Jay heard Chiram say ruefully. Jay asked himself, what will it be now? Infinity? He had understood that the exploding universe was like a balloon being inflated, time and space and all—not just the blast of a trillion stars into nothingness…
    Was space infinite? Were they flitting like