ely wired machine came sliding along, and
dutifully Sam hooked it up and flipped the switch. Automatically, his
eyes glanced disinterestedly at the dial showing Comparative Thrust. His
eyes bugged. The needle had passed fifty, had gone to the 100 mark
(never before reached), struck the metal projection, bent, and was
whirling in a rapid circle!

Sam quickly cut off the motor, then he glanced furtively about to see if
anyone had noticed. The room was a flurry of men busy at routine tasks
and none of them seemed particularly interested in anything that was
going on at his table.

Sam checked his own machine and found the tester in perfect working
order. He hesitated a brief moment, then flipped the switch again. He
was prepared for the whir of the dial now but still it frightened him a
little. There must be something wrong; no atomic engine could have that
much Comparative Thrust. Yet--the tester was perfect.

Sam Meecham shut off the tester and stood very still for a minute and
thought about it. His glance fell on the intricate wiring within the
atomic engine and he saw with a start that it looked different from
usual. Wires were where wires had never been before, where wires were
not supposed to be.

With another quick glance about him Sam began copying the wiring pattern
on a sheet of paper. He thrust the paper into his pocket as the foreman
came up to him.

"Say, Meecham," the foreman said, "that last engine okay?"

Sam Meecham hesitated briefly, then said, "The wiring was a little
fouled up. Busted the dial on the tester."

The foreman shook his head. "I was afraid of that. Some wireman on the
third floor came in half drunk a few minutes ago. That was only his
first machine, so the others ought to be okay." He jabbed a finger at
the engine. "You'd better send it back up."

When the foreman was gone Sam checked the wiring with his diagram to
make certain he hadn't made any mistakes, and then he disconnected some
of the wires--just in case.

For the first time in years Sam Meecham felt a new freedom. He'd always
been a dreamer hampered by cold reality--a man with his head in the
stars and his feet chained to solid earth. He'd wanted to go to the Moon
when the government first started colonizing; but Dorothy, his wife,
talked him out of it.

At various times he had felt that secret longing, that beckoning of the
stars, but each time he had shelved the desire and turned to attaching
his two wires of the test