bet Wade finds his
gear in the galley thrown around quite a bit."

"Where do we go from here, then?" Wade asked.

"Well, this world is bigger than Earth," said Morey. "Even if they're
afraid to go out of their cities to run farms, they must have other
cities. The thing that puzzles me, though, is how they do it--I don't
see how they can possibly raise enough food for a city in the area they
have available!"

"'People couldn't possibly live in hydrogen instead of oxygen'," Arcot
quoted, grinning. "That's what they told me when I made my little
announcement at the meeting on the Black Star situation. The only
trouble was--they did. That suggestion of yours meets the same fate,
Morey!"

"All right, you win," agreed Morey. "Now let's see if we can find the
other nations on this world more friendly."

Arcot looked at the sun. "We're now well north of the equator. We'll go
up where the air is thin, put on some speed, and go into the south
temperate zone. We'll see if we can't find some people there who are
more peaceably inclined."

Arcot cut off the invisibility tubes. Instantly, all the enemy ships in
the neighborhood turned and darted toward them at top speed. But the
shining _Ancient Mariner_ darted into the deep blue vault of the sky,
and a moment later was lost to their view.

"They had a lot of courage," said Arcot, looking down at the city as it
sank out of sight. "It doesn't take one-quarter as much courage to fight
a known enemy, no matter how deadly, as it does to fight an unknown
enemy force--something that can tear down mountains and throw their
forts into the air like toys."

"Oh, they had courage, all right," Morey conceded, "but I wish they
hadn't been quite so anxious to display it!"

They were high above the ground now, accelerating with a force of one
gravity. Arcot cut the acceleration down until there was just enough to
overcome the air resistance, which, at the height they were flying, was
very low. The sky was black above them, and the stars were showing
around the blazing sun. They were unfamiliar stars in unfamiliar
constellations--the stars of another universe.

In a very short time, the ship was dropping rapidly downward again, the
horizontal power off. The air resistance slowed them rapidly. They
drifted high over the south temperate zone. Below them stretched the
seemingly endless expanse of a great blue-green ocean.

"They don't lack for water, do they?" Wade commented.

"We coul