a minute. On the third hand, we've _got_
to start somewhere. Any ideas?"

"I never thought of it that way.... Hm-m-m-m ... I see." She thought for
a minute, then went on, "We'll have to start without starting, then ...
quite a trick.... But how about this? Suppose we take a fast tour, with
you and I taking quick peeks, without the peekees ever knowing we've
been peeking?"

"That's using the brain, Belle. Let's go." Then, out in the Main, "Jim,
we want to hit a few high spots, as far out as you can reach without
losing orientation. Beta Centauri here is pretty bright, Rigel and
Canopus are real lanterns. With those three as a grid, you could reach
fifteen hundred or two thousand light-years, couldn't you?"

"More than that. That many parsecs, at least."

"Good. Belle and I want to make a fast, random-sampling check of Primes
and Ops around here. We'll need five minutes at each planet--quite a
ways out. So set up as big a globe as you can and still be dead sure of
your locations; then sample it."

"Not enough data. How many samples do you want?"

"As many as we can get in the rest of today. Six or seven hours,
say--eight hours max."

"Call it seven.... Brownie on the guns, me on Compy.... Five minutes for
you.... I should be able to lock down the next shot in five ... one
minute extra, say, for safety factor ... that'd be ten an hour. Seventy
planets enough?"

"That'll be fine."

"Okay. We're practically at Number One now," and James and Lola donned
their scanners, ready for the job.

* * *

"Miss Flurnoy," Garlock said, "you might tell Mr. Entlore that
we're...."

"Oh, I already have, sir."

"You don't have to come along, of course, if you'd rather stay here."

"Stay here, sir? Why, he'd _kill_ me! I'm off the air for a minute,"
this last thought was a conspiratorial whisper. "Besides, do you think
I'd miss a chance to be the first person--and just a girl, too--of a
whole world to see other planets of other suns? Unless, of course, you
invite Mr. Entlore and Mr. Holson along. They're both simply dying to
go, I know, but of course won't admit it."

"You'd be just as well pleased if I didn't?"

"What do you think, sir?"

"We'll be working at top speed and they'd be very much in the way, so
they'll get theirs later--after you've licked the cream off the top of
the...."

"Ready to roll, Clee," James announced.

"Roll."

"Why, I lost contact!" Miss Flurnoy exclaimed.