drew down a metal ladder hanging in the curved ceiling of the chamber. "I'm going to take a look in the engine room," he said. "Want to come along?" he asked Burl.

Before the young man could say yes, Lockhart shook his head. "No, I don't want him to. I don't want anyone going up there who doesn't have to. That stuff is shielded, but you can never be sure."

Burl was disappointed, for he had wanted to see the nuclear generators. But Detmar shook his head, smiled, and pushed aside a round trap door in the ceiling. Burl could see that it connected with a similar door a foot higher. Detmar pushed it open and ascended into the forbidden sphere of the Zeta-rings. Burl got a glimpse of subdued, bluish light, and then the trap door shut after the engineer.

Later as they drove out through the valley, Burl looked back at the huge ship, and now, instead of appearing like an overhanging metal waterfall, he saw it as a wide-nosed bullet, aiming at the sky, surging against its bonds—a bullet for humanity's sake.

Chapter 5.Up the Rope of Space

Burl's visit home was a curious interlude. Actually, he had been away only a few weeks, since the summer vacation had begun, yet this single day had an air about it different from that of any other homecoming. He found himself continually looking at things in a more inquisitive, more thoughtful manner.

That which had been commonplace was suddenly something valuable, a sight to be treasured. For he had realized, as he sat in the fast plane transporting him home, that the Earth was itself a planet among planets, and that this might possibly prove to be his last visit to the town where he had been born. He had pondered, as he had gazed out of the ship's windows, just what it could mean to depart from this world and travel among the uncharted reaches of empty and hostile space ... to set foot upon planets where no human foot had ever touched and to meet unguessable perils.

So his home, his mother, his friends, the street on which he lived, took on a novel air. He studied them while enjoying a quiet day at home. He watched the cars in the street, so amusingly compact and small, each designed in the fleeting style of the year. The cars of a dozen years ago had been designed for length and size, but the trend had been the opposite for a decade now. The cars grew smaller and their lines weirder as the manufacturers strove to compete.

What other planet could 

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