indicating his angry protests had been overridden.

Carlin stared dismayedly at the food set before them. Instead of the clear, colored synthetic jellies and liquids he was used to, the food was served in what seemed barbarically primitive state. Cooked whole vegetables, natural eggs, natural milk—everything rawly natural.

He ate what he could, which was little. His weariness was drugging him, and Harb Land's smothered hostility gave a sense of strain.

Gramp Land carried on most of the conversation, questioning Carlin about the far-away star-worlds. Carlin answered wearily.

"Saw a lot of them worlds myself once," the old man said. He added proudly, "Following space runs in my family. My mother was a direct descendant of Gorham Johnson himself."

"Gorham Johnson?" Carlin asked. "Who was he?"

The question was unfortunate.

"What do they teach out in your star-world schools?" Gramp exploded. "Don't you know that Gorham Johnson was the first man ever to travel space? That he was an Earthman, who took off from down in the valley here two thousand years ago?"

Gramp's pride was outraged. Carlin remembered the old galaxy proverb—"Proud as an Earthman." They were all like that, inordinately vain of the fact that their world's people had first conquered space.

"Sorry," he said tiredly. "I remember the name now. Anyway, I had too much cosmic physics to study to spend much time on ancient history."

Gramp still spluttered, but Jonny intervened, questioning Carlin on his work.

"Did you study sub-atomics or just straight dynamics?"

"Sub-atomics," Carlin answered. And, to another question, "Yes, I had electronic mechanics too."

He caught the swift, triumphant glance that Jonny Land shot at his brother. It puzzled him.

"Jonny knows all that stuff," boasted Gramp, his good humor restored. "He's a Cosmic Engineer graduate from Canopus University, too."

Laird Carlin was genuinely surprised. He looked at the quiet, thin-faced youngster.

"You're a Canopus graduate? Why the devil is a man of your training wasting your time here on Earth?"

 Prev. P 13/54 next