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theoretically possible by somehow blasting out of our universe into hyperspace and then back in again at the desired point. Of course, hyperspace travel has been suggested only for spaceships, but I don't know why a properly equipped planet couldn't manage it, too—theoretically.
    Professional scientists like Bernal and philosophers such as Stapledon have theorized about traveling planets, not to mention authors like Stuart and Smith."
    "Theory!" the Ramrod snorted, adding sotto voce: "Hot air!"
    "How about that?" Beardy asked Doc, bringing the question onto the platform with a fine impartiality. "Is there any concrete evidence for the existence of hyperspace or hyperspace travel?"
    From beyond Doc, the She-Turban glanced toward him and Beardy curiously.
    "Not one shred," Doc said, with a grin. "I've tried to goose my astronomer friends into hunting for clues, but they don't take me very seriously."
    "You interest me," Beardy said. "Just what form might such clues take?"
    "I've thought about that," Doc admitted with relish. "One idea I've come up with is that the thrust necessary to get a ship into and out of hyperspace might involve the creation of momentary artificial gravitational fields—fields so intense that they would visibly distort the starlight passing through that volume of space. So I've suggested to my astronomer friends that they watch for the stars to waver on clear nights of good seeing—and especially from satellite 'scopes—and that they hunt through short-exposure star photographs for evidence of the same thing happening—stars blanking-out briefly or moving twistedly."
    The thin woman in the second row said: "I saw a story in the papers about a man seeing the stars twirl. Would that be evidence?"
    Doc chuckled. "I'm afraid not. Wasn't he drunk? We mustn't take these silly-season items too seriously."
    Paul simultaneously felt a shiver hug his chest and Margo clutch his arm.
    "Paul," she whispered urgently. "Isn't Doc describing exactly what you saw in those four photographs?"
    "It sounds similar," he temporized, trying to straighten it out in his own mind. "Very similar." Then, wonderingly: "He used the word 'twist'."
    "Well, how about it?" Margo demanded. "Has Doc got something or hasn't he?"
    "Opperly said—" Paul began…and realized that Doc was speaking to him.
    "Excuse me, you two in the back row—sorry, I don't know your names—do you have a contribution to make?"
    "Why, no. No, sir," Paul called rapidly. "We were simply very much impressed by your presentation."
    Doc waved his hand once in a good-natured acknowledgment.
    "Liar," Margo breathed at Paul with a smile. "I've half a mind to tell him all about it."
    Paul hadn't the heart to say no, which was probably a good thing. He was having another guilt attack, unlocalized but acute. Certainly, he told himself, he couldn't spill inside Project information—to saucerites, to boot. Still, there was something wrong with a setup in which someone like Doc couldn't know about those photographs.
    But then he started thinking about the point at issue, and the shiver returned. Damn it, there was something devilish about the way Doc's guesswork fitted with those photographs. He looked up urieasily at the dark moon. Margo's words resounded thinly in his memory: "What if the stars around it should squiggle now?"
     
    The moon-dust cannisters hanging on their thin metal stalks above the dimly glittering film of carbon dioxide snow looked like the weirdly mechanistic fruits of an ice garden.
    Moving in his helmet's headlight beam, Don Merriam stepped toward the nearest one as gently as he could, so as to kick up a minimum of contaminating dust. In spite of his caution, some dry-ice crystals arched up in the path of his metal boots and fell back abruptly, as is the way of dust and "snow" on the airless moon. He touched the trigger on the cannister which sealed it hermetically and then he plucked it from its stalk and dropped it in his pouch.
    "Highest-paid