the race went on. backdrop: planets, stars, darkness. the little flecks of light that edged nearer didn't seem cheerful to jordan. his lips were fixed in a straight, hard line. he could hear docchi come in behind him.

"nice speech," said cameron.

"yeah." docchi glanced at the telecom. the view didn't inspire further comment.

"that's the trouble, it was just a speech. it didn't do you any good. my advice is to give up before you get hurt."

"it would be."

cameron stood at the threshold. "i may as well tell you," he said reluctantly. "i tried to before the broadcast, as soon as i found out what you were going to do. but you wouldn't listen."

he came into the control compartment. nona was huddled in a seat, motionless, expressionless. anti was absent.

"you know why the medicouncil refused to let you go?"

"sure," said docchi.

"the general metabolism of accidentals is further from normal than that of creatures we dredge from the bottom of the sea. add to that an enormously elongated life span and you ought to see the medicouncil's objection."

"get to the point!"

"look at it this way," cameron continued almost desperately. "the centauri group contains quite a few planets. from what we know of cosmology, intelligent life probably exists there to a greater or lesser extent. you will be our representatives to them. what they look like isn't important; it's their concern. but our ambassadors have to meet certain minimum standards. they at least—damn it, don't you see that they at least have to look like human beings?"

"i know you feel that way," said jordan, rigid with contempt.

"i'm not talking for myself," cameron said. "i'm a doctor. the medicouncilors are doctors. we graft on or regenerate legs and arms and eyes. we work with blood and bones and intestines. we know what a thin borderline separates normal people from—from you.

"don't you understand? they're perfect, perhaps too much so. they can't tolerate even small blemishes. they rush to us with things like hangnails, pimples, simple dandruff. health—or rather the appearance of it—has become a fetish. they may think they're sympathetic to you, but what they actually feel is something else."

"what are you driving at?" whispered docchi.

"just this: if it were up to the medicouncil, you would be on your way to the centauri group. but it isn't. the decision always had to be referred back to the solar system as a whole. and the medicouncil can't go counter to the mass of public opinion."

docchi turned away in loathing.

"don't believe me," said cameron. "you're not too far from earth. pick up the reaction to your broadcast."

worriedly, jordan looked at docchi.

"we may as well find out," said docchi. "it's settled now, one way or the other."

they searched band after band. the reaction was always the same. obscure private citizen or prominent one, man or woman, they all told how sorry they were for the accidentals, but—

"turn it off," said docchi at last.

"now what?" jordan asked numbly.

"you have no choice," said the doctor.

"no choice," repeated docchi dully. "no choice but to give up. we misjudged who our allies were."

"we knew you had," said cameron. "it seemed better to let you go on thinking that way while you were on the asteroid. it gave you something to hope for. it made you feel you weren't alone. the trouble was that you got farther than we thought you would ever be able to."

"so we did," docchi said. his lethargy seemed to lift a little. "and there's no reason to stop now. jordan, pick up the ships behind us. tell them we've got cameron on board. a hostage. play him up as a hero. basically, he's not with those who are against us."

anti came into the control compartment. cheerfulness faded from her face. "what's the matter?" she asked.

"jordan will explain to you. i've got to think."

docchi closed his eyes. the ship lurched slightly, though the vibration from the rockets did not change. there was no reason for alarm; the flight of a ship was never completely steady. docchi paid no attention.

at last he opened his eyes. "if we were properly fueled and provisioned," he said without much hope, "i would be in favor of the four of us heading for alpha or proxima. maybe even sirius. it wouldn't matter where, since we wouldn't intend to come back. but we can't make it with our small fuel reserve. if we can shake the ships behind us, we might be able to hide until we can steal the necessary fuel and food."

"what'll we do with doc?" asked jordan.

"we'd have to raid an unguarded outpost, of course. probably a small mining asteroid. we can leave him there."

"yeah," said jordan. "a good idea, if we can run away from our personal escort of bloodhounds. offhand, that doesn't seem very likely. they didn't come any closer when i told them we had doc with us, but they didn't drop back—"

he stopped and raised his eyes to the telecom. he blinked, not believing what he saw.

"they're gone!" his voice broke with excitement.

almost instantly docchi was beside him. "no," he corrected. "they're still following, but they're very far behind." even as he looked, the pursuing ships visibly lost ground.

"what's our relative speed?" asked jordon. he looked at the dials himself, frowned, tapped them as if the needles had gone crazy.

"what did you do to the rockets?" demanded docchi.

"nothing! there wasn't a thing i could do. we were already running at top speed."

"we're above it. way above it. how?"

there was nothing to explain their astonishing velocity. cameron, anti, and jordan were in the control compartment. nona still sat huddled up, hands pressed tight against her head. there was no explanation at all, yet power was pouring into the gravital unit, as a long unused, actually useless dial was indicating.

"the gravital drive is working," docchi blankly pointed out.

"nonsense," said anti. "i don't feel any weight."

"you don't," answered docchi. "you won't. the gravital unit was originally installed to drive the ship. when that proved unsatisfactory, it was converted. the difference is slight but important. an undirected general field produces weight effects inside the ship. that's for passenger comfort. a directed field, outside the ship, will drive it. you can have one or the other, not both."

"but i didn't turn on the gravital drive," said jordan in flat bewilderment. "i couldn't if i wanted to. it's disconnected."

"i would agree with you, except for one thing. it's working." docchi stared at nona, whose eyes were closed. "get her attention," he said.

it was jordan who gently touched her shoulder. she opened her eyes. on the instrument board, the needle of a once useless dial rose and fell.

"what's the matter with the poor dear?" asked anti. "she's shaking."

"let her alone," said docchi.

no one moved. no one said anything at all. minutes passed while the ancient ship creaked and groaned and ran away from the fastest rockets in the solar system.

"i think i know," said docchi at last, still frowning. "consider the gravity-generating plant. part of it is an electronic computer, capable of making the necessary calculations and juggling the proportion of power required to produce, continuously, directed or undirected gravity. in other words, a brain, a complex mechanical intelligence. from the viewpoint of that intelligence, why should it perform ad infinitum a complicated but meaningless routine? it didn't know why, and because it didn't, very simply, it refused to do so.

"now consider nona. she's deaf, can't speak, can't communicate. in a way she's comparable to the gravital computer. like it, she has a very high potential intelligence. like it, she's had difficulty grasping the facts of her environment. unlike it, though, she has learned something. how much, i don't know, but it's far more than the medicouncil psychologists credit her with."

"yeah," said jordan dubiously. "but what's happening now?"

"if there were two humans involved, you would call it telepathy," answered docchi hesitantly, fumbling for concepts he could only sense without grasping. "one intelligence is electronic, the other organic. you'll have to coin a new term, because the only one i know is extrasensory perception, and that's obviously ridiculous. it is, isn't it?"

jordan smiled and flexed his arms. under the shapeless garment his muscles rippled. "it isn't," he said. "the power was there, but we're the only ones who know how to use it. or rather nona is."

"power?" repeated anti, rising majestically. "you can keep it. i want just enough to get to centauri."

"i think you'll get it," docchi promised. "a lot of things seem clearer now. for example, in the past, why didn't gravital units work well at considerable distances from the sun? as a matter of fact, the efficiency of each unit was inversely proportional to the square of the distance between it and the sun.

"the gravital computer is a deaf, blind, mass-sensitive brain. the major fact in its existence is the sun, the greatest mass in the solar system. to such a brain, leaving the solar system would be like stepping off the edge of a flat world, because it couldn't be aware of stars.

"now that it knows about the galaxy, the drive will work anywhere. with nona to direct it, even sirius isn't far away."

"doc," said jordan carelessly, "you'd better be figuring a way to get off the ship. remember, we're going faster than man ever went before." he chuckled. "unless, of course, you like our company and don't want to leave."

"we've got to do some figuring ourselves," interposed docchi. "such as where we are heading now."

"a good idea," said jordan. he busied himself with charts and calculations. gradually his flying fingers slowed. his head bent low over his work. at last he stopped and folded his arms.

"where?" asked docchi.

"there." jordan dully punched the telecom selector and a view became fixed on the screen. in the center glimmered a tiny world, a fragment of a long-exploded planet. their destination was easily recognizable.

it was handicap haven.

"but why do we want to go there?" asked anti. she looked in amazement at docchi.

"we're not going voluntarily," he answered, his voice flat and spent. "we're going where the medicouncil wants us to go. we forgot about the monitor system. when nona activated the gravital unit, that fact was indicated at some central station. all the medicouncil had to do was use the monitor to take the gravital drive away from nona."

"we thought we were running away from the ships, which we were, but only to beat them back to the junkpile?" asked anti.

docchi nodded.

"well, it's over. we did our best. there's no use crying about it." yet she was. she passed by nona, patting her gently. "it's all right, darling. you tried."

jordan followed her from the compartment.

cameron remained; he came over to docchi. "everything isn't lost," he said, somewhat awkwardly. "you're back where you started from, but nona at least will benefit."

"benefit?" said docchi. "someone will. it won't be nona."

"you're wrong. now that she is an important factor—"

"so is a special experimental machine. very valuable. i don't think she'll like that classification."

silence met silence. it was dr. cameron who turned away.

"that ghastly glow of yours when you're angry always did upset me. i'll come back when it's dimmer."

docchi glared after him. cameron was the only normal aware that it was nona who controlled the gravital unit. all the outside world could realize was that it was in operation, as it had been designed to work, but never had. if cameron could be disposed of—

he shook his head. it wouldn't solve anything. he might fool them for a while. they might think he was responsible. in the end, they'd find out. nona wasn't capable of that much deception, for she never knew what a test was.

he went over to her. once he had hoped.... it didn't matter what he had hoped.

she looked up and smiled. she had a right to. no word had ever broken the silence of her mind, but now she was communicating with something, whatever it was that an electronic brain could say. of course she didn't understand that the conversation was taking place between two captives, herself and the gravital computer.

abruptly he turned away. he stopped at the telecom panel and methodically kicked it apart. delicate tubes smashed into powder. the emergency radio he thoroughly demolished.

the ship was firmly in the grip of the gravital monitor. there was nothing he could do about that. all that remained was to protect nona from their prying minds as long as he could.

she didn't hear the noise, or didn't care. she sat there, head in her hands, calm and smiling.