I saw them lead the people into blunders. I read
history and I saw that since the time man had risen from the ape, this
had been going on. So I proposed to give the people scientific
government ... a business administration. An administration that would
have run the government exactly as a successful businessman runs his
business. The people would have resented it if I had told them they
didn't know how to run their affairs. There was only one way to do
it ... gain control and force it down their throats."

Chambers was no longer a beaten man, no longer a man with a white
bandage around his head and his power stripped from him. Once again he
was the fighting financier who had sat back at the desk in the
Interplanetary building on Earth and issued orders ... orders that sped
across millions of miles of space.

He shrugged his shoulders. "They didn't want it. Man doesn't want to
live under scientific government. He doesn't want to be protected
against blunders. He wants what he calls freedom. The right to do the
things he wants to do, even if it means making a damn fool of himself.
The right to rise to great heights and tumble to equally low depths.
That's human nature and I ruled it out. But you can't rule out human
nature."

They sat in silence, no one speaking. Russ cupped his pipe bowl in his
hand and watched Chambers. Chambers leaned back and slowly puffed at
the cigar. Greg just sat, his face unchanging.

Craven finally broke the silence. "Just what are you planning to do?"

Chambers flicked his hand toward the distant sun that gleamed through
the vision port.

"There's a new solar system out there," he said. "New worlds, a new sun.
A place to start over again. You and I discovered it. It's ours by right
of discovery. We'll go there and stake out our claim."

"But there may be nothing there," protested Greg. "That sun is younger
than our Sun. The planets may not have cooled as yet. Life may not have
developed."

"In such a case," said Chambers, "we shall find another planetary system
around another sun. A system that has cooled, where there is life."

Russ gasped. Here was something important, something that should set a
precedent. The first men to roam from star to star seeking new worlds.
The first men to turn their backs on the old solar system and strike out
in search of new worlds swinging in their paths around distant suns.

Greg was saying, "All right, if that's the way you want it. I was hoping