a guy and--"

"A nice guy?"

"The best," said Temple. "You'd like him."

Temple saw the vague hurt come to Jason's smouldering eyes. Then it
was the same. One part of Jason wanted her to remain his over an
unthinkable gap, another part wanted her to live a good, full life.

"I'm glad," said Jason. "Can't expect a girl to wait without hope...."

"Then there's no hope we'll ever get back?"

Jason laughed harshly. "You tell me. Earth isn't merely sixty thousand
light years away. Kit, do you know what a light year is?"

Temple said he thought he did.

"Sixty thousand of them. A dozen eternities. But the Earth we know is
also dead. Dead five thousand years. The folks, Center City, Ann, her
husband--all dust. Five thousand years old.... Don't mind me, Kit."

"Sure. Sure, I understand." But Temple didn't, not really. You
couldn't take five thousand years and chuck them out the window in
what seemed the space of a heart beat and then realize they were gone
permanently, forever. Not a period of time as long as all of recorded
civilization--you couldn't take it, tack it on after 1992 and accept
it. Somehow, Temple realized, the five thousand years were harder to
swallow than the sixty thousand light years.

"Well," with a visible effort, Jason snapped out of his reverie.
Temple accepted a cigarette gratefully, his first in a long time. _In
fifty centuries_, he thought bitterly, burrowing deeper into a funk.

"Well," said Jason, "I'm acting like a prize boob. How selfish can I
get? There must be an awful lot you'd like to know, Kit."

"That's all right. I was told I'd be indoctrinated."

"Ordinarily, you would. But there's no shipment now, none for another
three months. Say, how the devil _did_ you get here?"

"That's a long story. Nowhere Journey, same as you, with a little
assist to speed things up on Mars. Jase, tell me this: what are we
doing here? What is everyone doing here? What's the Nowhere Journey
all about? What kind of a glorified foot-race did I see a while ago,
with a bunch of creatures out of the telio science-fiction shows?"

* * * * *

Jason put his own cigarette out, changed his mind, lit another one.
"Sort of like the old joke, where does an alien go to register?"

"Sort of."

"It's a big universe," said Jason, evidently starting at the beginning
of something.

"I'm just beginning to learn _how_ big!"

"It would be pretty unimaginative of mankind to consider