n she went
into his room he was shaved and fully dressed except for one shoe, which
he was putting on.

"Hi, boss! Better we eat, huh? Not only am I starving by inches, but if
we don't eat pretty quick we'll get only one meal today instead of
three. Did you eat your candy bar?"

"I sure did, ace."

"Oh, I'm still 'ace'? You can kiss me, then," and she raised her face
toward his.

He kissed her, still tenderly, and they strolled to and through the Main
and into the alcove. James and Lola, the latter looking terribly
strained and worn, had already eaten, but joined them in their
after-breakfast coffee and cigarettes.

"You've checked, of course," Garlock said. "Everything on the beam?"

"Dead center. Even to Lola and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy
and gratitude and stuff--as well as information. And we managed to pry
ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So
we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in _hell_ we'll wind up _this_
time."

"I'm glad you said that, Jim." Garlock said. "It gives me the nerve to
spring a thing on you that I've been mulling around in my mind ever
since we landed here."

"Nerve? You?" James asked, incredulously. "Pass the coffee-pot around
again, Brownie. If that character there said what I heard him say,
this'll make your hair stand straight up on end."

"On our jumps we've had altogether too much power and no control
whatever...." Garlock paused in thought.

"Like a rookie pitcher," Belle suggested.

"Uh-uh," Lola objected. "It _couldn't_ be that wild. He'd have to stand
with his back to the plate and pitch the ball over the center-field
stands and seven blocks down-town."

"Cut the persiflage, you two," Garlock ordered. "Consider three things.
First, as you all know, I've been trying to figure out a generator that
would give us intrinsic control, but I haven't got any farther with it
than we did back on Tellus. Second, consider all the jumps we've made
except this last one. Every time we've taken off, none of us has had his
shield really up. You, Jim, were concentrating on the drive, and so were
wide open to it. The rest of us were at least thinking about it, and so
were more or less open to it. Not one of us has ever ordered it to take
us to any definite place; in fact, I don't believe that anyone of us has
ever even suggested a destination. Each one of us has been thinking, at
the instant of energization of the fields, exactly what you j