such a control would make it impossible for a speeding ship to venture too close to a sun.

Kim set joyously to work to make three changes in the overdrive circuit, and to build a radiation-operated relay.

Outside the space-ship the sky turned deep-purple. Presently the dull-red sun arose, and the white hoarfrost melted and glistened wetly, and most of it evaporated in a thin white mist. The frozen waterfall dripped and dripped, and presently flowed freely. The lichenous plants rippled and stirred in the thin chill winds that blew over the small planet, and even animals appeared, stupid and sluggish things, which lived upon the lichens.

Hours passed. The dull-red sun sank low and vanished. The little waterfall flowed more and more slowly, and at last ceased altogether. The sky became a deep dense black and multitudes of stars shone down on the grounded space-ship.

It was a small, starved world, this planet, swinging in lonely isolation around a burned-out sun. About it lay the Galaxy in which were three hundred million inhabited worlds, circling brighter, hotter, much more splendid stars. But the starveling little planet was the only place in all the Galaxy, save one, where no Disciplinary Circuit held the human race in slavery.

Nothing happened visibly upon the planet during many days. There were nights in which the hoarfrost glistened whitely, and days in which the frozen waterfall thawed and splashed valiantly. The sluggish, stupid animals ignored the space-ship. It was motionless and they took it for a rock. Only twice did its two occupants emerge, to gather the vegetation which was raw material for their food-synthesizer. On the second expedition, Kim seized upon an animal to add to the larder, but its helpless futile struggles somehow disgusted him. He let it go.

"I prefer test-tube meat," he said distastefully. "We've food enough anyhow for a long, long time. At worst we can always come back for more."

They went into the ship and stored the vegetable matter in the synthesizer-bins. They returned, then, to the control-room.

"I think it's right," Kim said soberly, as he took the seat before the control-panel. "But nobody ever knows. Maybe we have a space-ship now which makes matter-transmitters absurd. Maybe we've something we can't control at all, which will land us hundreds of millions of light-years away, so that we'll never be able to find even this galaxy again."

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