Admiral Meldrum, who had been the first man to set a foot on the Moon some forty years ago.

"Gentlemen, this is Captain William Enright, test pilot of the Interstellar Spacecraft One, Operation Interstellar. Captain Enright, the Board of Inquiry." The admiral named them around the table. The only one Billy knew was Commodore Hogan; the rest he only recognized by name, other than the top brass of his own project. He nodded affably, then Billy frowned and asked:

"This looks formidably formal, sir. Am I to be represented by someone appointed in my favor?"

Admiral Meldrum shook his head. "This is no Court Military," he said. "This is a Court of Inquiry. You would have faced this court if you had returned home on schedule, to deliver your report. There have been no charges made formally. If your explanation is adequate, there will be none. This meeting will be informal. If you can show just cause for returning eighteen months late from a twelve-hour mission, no charges will be made. Now, Captain Enright, please deliver your report, beginning at the beginning?"

"Certainly. At 1200 hours, on 4 March 2014, I took off from the Earth in the first spacecraft capable of driving faster than the velocity of light. I—"

"One moment, Captain," asked one of the men in civilian dress. Enright blinked and saw that the man's name was Harness. E. D. Harness, Senator, Chairman of the Committee on Special Affairs and so forth. Enright nodded, and the senator went on: "My scientific knowledge is sketchy. I was taught that nothing can exceed the speed of light."

"You were taught prior to Bergenholm's discovery of the nullification of mass," smiled Enright. "Mass increases, in accordance with Einstein's equations, as the velocity approaches the speed of light, so that the mass becomes infinite when the velocity of light is reached. But when mass is nullified, or reduced to zero—" Billy Enright spread his hands amusedly, "—you can multiply it all night and a hundred billion times zero is still zero."

"And the drive?"

"A standard reaction motor of the rocket type. Since the ship's mass is zero, its inertia is also zero and therefore the thrusting force of an infant can move zero mass and inertia if need be."

Senator Harness nodded. "Then with any kind of reaction thrust you could achieve infinite velocity because the mass and inertia are zero?"

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