ly. "It'll take us a long time won't it? If it's got
air we can breath, and water we can drink and shade we can rest
in--that'll be paradise enough for us. But it'll take a long time
won't it? And what if it isn't there--what if after all the time we
spend hoping and getting there--there won't be nothing but ashes and
cracked clay?"

"I know we're going right," Dunbar said cheerfully. "I can tell. Like
I said--you can tell it because of the red rim around it."

"But the sun on our left, you can see--it's got a red rim too now,"
Russell said.

"Yeah, that's right," said Alvar. "Sometimes I see a red rim around
the one we're going for, sometimes a red rim around that one on the
left. Now, sometimes I'm not sure either of them's got a red rim. You
said that one had a red rim, Dunbar, and I wanted to believe it. So
now maybe we're all seeing a red rim that was never there."

Old Dunbar laughed. The sound brought blood hotly to Russell's face.
"We're heading to the right one, boys. Don't doubt me ... I been here.
We explored all these sun systems. And I remember it all. The second
planet from that red-rimmed sun. You come down through a soft
atmosphere, floating like in a dream. You see the green lakes coming
up through the clouds and the women dancing and the music playing. I
remember seeing a ship there that brought those women there, a long
long time before ever I got there. A land like heaven and women like
angels singing and dancing and laughing with red lips and arms white
as milk, and soft silky hair floating in the winds."

Russell was very sick of the old man's voice. He was at least glad he
didn't have to look at the old man now. His bald head, his skinny
bobbing neck, his simpering watery blue eyes. But he still had to
suffer that immutable babbling, that idiotic cheerfulness ... and
knowing all the time the old man was crazy, that he was leading them
wrong.

I'd break away, go it alone to the right sun, Russell thought--but I'd
never make it alone. A little while out here alone and I'd be nuttier
than old Dunbar will ever be, even if he keeps on getting nuttier all
the time.

Somewhere, sometime then ... Russell got the idea that the only way
was to get rid of Dunbar.

* * * * *

"You mean to tell us there are people living by that red-rimmed sun,"
Russell said.

"Lost people ... lost ... who knows how long," Dunbar said, as the
four of them hurtled along. "You never k