of it. Quite a number of people who aren't used to the
cold-sleep drug suffer from minor lapses of memory. How do you feel
now?"

Bart's legs were numb and his hands tingled when he sat up; but his body
processes had been slowed so much by the cold-sleep that he didn't even
feel hungry; the synthetic jelly he'd eaten just before going to sleep
wasn't even digested yet.

When the Mentorian left for another cabin, Bart looked around, and
suddenly felt he would stifle if he stayed here another minute. He
wasn't likely to run into Tommy twice in a row, and if he did, well,
Tommy would probably remember the snub he'd had and stay away from Dave
Briscoe. And he wanted another sight of the stars--before he went into
worry and danger.

He went down to the Observation Lounge.

The cosmic dust was brighter out here, and the constellations looked a
little flattened. Textbook tables came back to him. He had traveled 47
light-years--he couldn't remember how many _billions_ of miles that was.
Even so, it was only the tiniest hop-skip-and-jump in the measureless
vastness of space.

The ship was streaking toward Procyon, a sol-type star, bright yellow;
the three planets, Alpha, Beta and Gamma, ringed like Saturn and veiled
in shimmering layers of cloud, swung against the night. Past them other
stars, brighter stars, faraway stars he would never see, glimmered
through the pale dust....

"Hello, Dave. Been space-sick all this time? Remember me? I met you
about six weeks ago in the lounge down here--just out from Earth."

_Oh, no!_ Bart turned, with a mental groan, to face Tommy. "I've been in
cold-sleep," he said. He _couldn't_ be rude again.

"What a dull way to face a long trip!" Tommy said cheerily. "I've
enjoyed every minute of it myself."

It was hard for Bart to realize that, for Tommy, their meeting had been
six weeks ago. It all seemed dreamlike. The closer he came to it, the
less he could realize that in a few hours he'd be getting off on a
strange world, with only the strange name _Raynor Three_ as a guide. He
felt terribly alone, and having Tommy close at hand helped, even though
Tommy didn't know he was helping.

"Maybe I should have stayed awake."

"You should," Tommy said. "I only slept for a couple of hours at each
warp-drive shift. We had a day-long stopover at Sirius Eighteen, and I
took a tour of the planet. And I've spent a lot of time down here, just
star-gazing--not that it did me much good. Which one