ces. What
d'you think--with Dunark and Urvan, do we know enough to go ahead or
should we take a chance on holding things up while we get acquainted
with some of the other peoples of these planets of the green system?"

"Delay is dangerous, as our time is already short," Crane replied after
a time. "We know enough, I believe; and furthermore, any additional
assistance is problematical; in fact, it is more than doubtful. The
Norlaminians have surveyed the system rather thoroughly, and no other
planet seems to have inhabitants who have even approached the
development attained here."

"Right--that's the way I dope it, exactly. We'll wait until the gang
assembles, then go over the top. In the meantime, I called you over to
take a ride in this projector--it's a darb. I'd like to shoot for the
Fenachrone system first, but I don't quite dare to."

"Don't _dare_ to? You?" scoffed Margaret. "How come?"

"Cancel the 'dare'--change it to 'prefer not to.' Why? Because while
they can't work through a zone of force, some of their real
scientists--and they have lots of them, not like the bull-headed soldier
we captured--may well be able to detect a fifth-order ray--even if they
can't work with them intelligently--and if they detected our ray, it'd
put them on guard."

"You are exactly right, Dick," agreed Crane. "And there speaks the
Norlaminian physicist, and not my old and reckless playmate Richard
Seaton."

"Oh, I don't know--I told you I was getting timid as a mouse. But let's
not sit here twiddling our thumbs--let's go places and do things.
Whither away? I want a destination a good ways off, not something in our
own back yard."

"Go back home, of course, stupe," put in Dorothy, "do you have to be
told every little thing?"

"Sure--never thought of that," and Seaton, after a moment's rapid mental
arithmetic, swung the great tube around, rapidly adjusted a few dials,
and stepped down upon a pedal. There was a fleeting instant of
unthinkable velocity; then they found themselves poised somewhere in
space.

"Well, wonder how far I missed it on my first shot?" Seaton's crisp
voice broke the stunned silence. "Guess that's our sun, over to the
left, ain't it, Mart?"

"Yes. You were about right for distance, and within a few tenths of a
light-year laterally. That is fairly close, I should have said."

"Rotten, for these controls. Except for the effect of relative proper
motions, which I can't calculate yet for lack of data. I