it impossible to use a series of driving apparatus, even
could these be anchored, but again the sheer immensity of the task made
it impossible.

Taj Lamor gazed down again at the great ships in the plaza below. Their
mighty bulks seemed to dwarf even the huge buildings about them. Yet
these ships were his--for he had learned their secrets and designed
them, and now he was to command them as they flew out across space in
that flight to the distant star.

He turned briefly to the Elder, Tordos Gar. "Soon we leave," he said, a
faint edge of triumph in his voice. "We will prove that our way is
right."

The old man shook his head. "You will learn--" he began, but Taj Lamor
did not want to hear.

He turned, passed through a doorway, and stepped into a little
torpedo-shaped car that rested on the metal roof behind him. A moment
later the little ship rose, and then slanted smoothly down over the edge
of the roof, straight for the largest of the ships below. This was the
flagship. Nearly a hundred feet greater was its diameter, and its mile
and a quarter length of gleaming metal hull gave it nearly three hundred
feet greater length than that of the ships of the line.

This expedition was an expedition of exploration. They were prepared to
meet any conditions on those other worlds--no atmosphere, no water, no
heat, or even an atmosphere of poisonous gases they could rectify, for
their transmutation apparatus would permit them to change those gases,
or modify them; they knew well how to supply heat, but they knew too,
that that sun would warm some of its planets sufficiently for their
purposes.

Taj Lamor sent his little machine darting through the great airlock in
the side of the gigantic interstellar ship and lowered it gently to the
floor. A man stepped forward, opened the door for the leader, saluting
him briskly as he stepped out; then the car was run swiftly aside, to be
placed with thousands of others like it. Each of these cars was to be
used by a separate investigator when they reached those other worlds,
and there were men aboard who would use them.

Taj Lamor made his way to a door in the side of a great metal tube that
threaded the length of the huge ship. Opening the door he sat down in
another little car that shot swiftly forward as the double door shut
softly, with a low hiss of escaping air. For moments the car sped
through the tube, then gently it slowed and came to rest opposite
another door. Again came