But merely rising from Terranova would consume one-third of it, and landing on any other planet would take another third.

Actually the little ship was in the position of being able to go almost anywhere, but of having no hope at all of being able to come back.

It rose from Terranova though, just three days after the emergency was made clear. There were a few small gadgets on board—hastily made in the intervening seventy-two hours—but nothing deadly—nothing that could really be termed a weapon.

The Starshine climbed beyond the atmosphere of the Second Galaxy planet. It went on overdrive—at two hundred light-speeds—to a safe distance from Terranova's planetary system. Then it stopped in normal space, not stressed to allow for extra speed.

Kim jockeyed it with infinite care until it was aimed straight at the tiny wisp of nebulous light which was the First Galaxy, unthinkable thousands of light-years away. At long last he was satisfied. He pressed the transmitter-field button—and all space seemed to reel about the ship.

At the moment the transmitter-field went on, the Starshine had a velocity of twenty miles per second and a mass of perhaps two hundred tons. The kinetic energy it possessed was fixed by those two facts.

But, when the transmitter-field enveloped it, its mass dropped—divided by a factor approaching infinity. And its speed necessarily increased in exact proportion because its kinetic energy was undiminished. It was enclosed in a stressed space in which an infinite speed was possible. It approached that infinite speed on its original course.

Instantly, it seemed, alarm-gongs rang and the cosmos reeled again. Suddenly there was a glaring light pouring in the forward vision-ports. There were uncountable millions of stars all about and, almost straight ahead, a monstrous, palpitating Cepheid sun swam angrily in emptiness.

The Starshine had leaped the gulf between galaxies in a time to be measured in heart-beats and the transmitter-field was thrown off when the total quantity of radiation impinging upon a sensitive plate before her had reached a certain total.

Dona watched absorbedly as Kim made his observations and approximately fixed his position. The Mayor of Steadheim looked on suspiciously.

"What's this?"

"Locating 

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