"Damn it, Barton! Don't you think I want a turn at driving this kiddie car?"

Barton laughed; hell, he should have thought of that.

"OK, Tarleton, she's all yours."

Tarleton was a model of caution and precision. He never applied the maximum-agreed power nor made vio- lent rolls or turns. He returned the ship quite closely to his starting point and to drift speed before turning it over to Barton.

"Thanks, Barton. I just wanted to fly a spaceship once in my life. You realize that once the program is under way, an unqualified guy like me won't have a chance."

"Hell, you can fly any ship / have any say-so about, any time you want." Tarieton was silent; finally Barton realized why. He, Barton, probably wasn't going to have any say-so about these things much longer, is what it meant. Well, maybe. People had had that kind of at- titude about Barton before. Like the Demu, for instance.

Barton filed the whole bit for future reference. After all, it wasn't as though he'd failed to provide for the contin- gency.

"OK, gang," he said. "I'm going to haul her down like a real bat, so you can see how she hits air. Then 111 ease her back, just above SST traffic levels, and go in quiet from there." He chuckled. "It's going to be fun trying our own ship; from what I hear, it has considerably more legs on it than this baby has."

He took her down like a real bat indeed; his passen-

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gers, including Tarleton, were noticeably shaken. Barton chuckled to himself, thinking how they might have re- acted to his first atmospheric entrance, when he'd guessed wrong and nearly joined the Submarine Service before he pulled out of his dive. He decided not to mention that oc- casion.

He flipped a jury-rigged switch for the special channel to Boeing Field; Control gave him the OK to drop in on a straight vertical. He made a good landing because the Demu shield allowed no other kind. He wondered if, la- ter, everyone shouldn't learn to land without the shield, just in case.

Barton had heard that it always rained in Seattle, but the six of them stepped out to face a sunny day. Claebum, the Space Agency's liaison roan, apologized for the un- usual heat wave-all of 80 degrees. After New Mexico it felt like a cool pleasant early-morning. In fact, the time was a little after noon; they had lunch at a nearby restau- rant. Claeburn suggested the company cafeteria but Tarleton wanted a drink with his lunch, and insisted. Bar- ton was damn glad; he wanted one too. He was appalled at the size of the luncheon check picked up by Claeburn.

Inflation hadn't slowed down.

After a briefing so lengthy that the drinks had had plenty of time to wear off. Barton put the prototype. Earth's first starship, through its paces. It carried about 50 per- cent greater acceleration than''the Demu version, nearly as much advantage on tight turns', and an interlock that would not allow bard maneuvering to overload and blow the ship's internal gravity field. Barton hadn't known, and was surprised enough to say so, that such a danger existed on the Demu ship; apparently he had been wildly lucky not to exceed the limit. Especially, he thought, on his first reentry to Earth. He felt uncomfortable, having his igno- rance exposed. He felt it put more chinks in his image . than he really needed.

The revised controls were no problem. There were about two-thirds as many toggles as in the Demu ship- larger, more widely spaced, and each clearly labeled.

Claebum had run them through the list of functions, any- way; it couldn't hurt. Barton could see that pilot training was going to be a real snap, especially after the four trainees, Tarleton and even Claebum had given the new ship a workout. The procedure was like that of the morn- ing tryouts, but faster and smoother. And more comfort-

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able: the seats weren't so crowded. Barton felt that they were definitely making progress- Over dinner, just the two of them, Tarleton explained the Agency's plans. "Tomorrow and the next day, you take those four men up and wring them out on naviga- tion, test procedures and trouble-shooting; stuff like that.

Pilot practice is incidental at this stage, but they'll be getting it, anyway. Mainly, though, you're training the next generation of instructors."

"Jeez," Barton protested, "I don't know any more about testing and trouble-shooting than they do."

"But they think you do," Tarleton answered. "Here are the books; you and I can go over them tonight I've skimmed them; they're well put together, easy to follow.

All you have to do is keep two jumps ahead of those four guys for the next few days. Then you come on back south in the Demu ship and they're on their own."

"But why me?" Barton was sincerely puzzled. "Why not the guys who wrote the books?"

"Because you are the one man on Earth who has ac- tually piloted an interstellar trip. I know and you know how much luck you needed, but you have no idea how much the simple fact means to the Agency. They think you're Superman. It's simpler to let them keep thinking so, because then when you pass your students as trained they'll figure some of it rubbed off. You see?"

Barton saw. He saw, moreover, how maybe it gave him a handle on something he wanted, something he was utterly damn well going to have.

"Tarleton," he said, "if * I'm all that important, how about letting me in on the Top-Hush? I mean, we're building ships and training pilots. What are we going to do with them?"

Tarletoo was quiet for a time. "All right, Barton,** he said finally. "I guess you deserve to know. Most of it, anyway.

"We're having forty ships built, all about the same as the one we flew today, but more advanced. You no- ticed ours is somewhat bigger than the Demu ship, to carry the more powerful drive. The hulls and loose hard- ware have been in production since the second week after you got home. I've put in the OK. to go ahead and stan- dardize on the drive units as-is, based on our tests today;

the theory boys can incorporate later improvements into

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our second fleet, and so on. And what we're going to do should be obvious. We're going after the Demu."

"We?" said Barton, very quietly.

"Well, not you or I personally, of course. After all-"

"The hell you say!" Barton hadn't meant to put it like that, but there it was. "Me personally! Very definitely, me personally. Who the hell's fight do they think this is,

anyway?"

"Well, I know how you must feel, of course, but you can't really expect the Agency and the military to let an outsider into the act, can you?"

"I can," said Barton. "I can and I do. You think I can't?" Slowly, deliberately, he pushed the stack of train- ing books off the table; they landed on the floor in dis- array. He looked Tarleton in the eyes, both of them suddenly quiet.

"You want me to pick those books up, Tarleton?"

After a while, Tarleton nodded slowly. Barton picked up the books, dusted them off, stacked them neatly. "All right. Barton, you've made your point. I'll do the best I

can for you."

"You'll get me one of those ships. In charge of it."

"I'll try."

"You'll do it." He leaned forward across the table.

"Listen, Tarleton, I can do a lot more for you, than be some sort of lousy figurehead. You say we're going after the Demu. Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"That's stupid. You know how big they are? I don't either, for sure, but I do know a little, from what Limila learned. I told it, but maybe nobody paid attention.

"They inhabit-that's inhabit-about a dozen planets.

To our one. On top of that they have 'farm planets' with a few Demu supervising populations of ready-made Demu like Limila and Whosits-but of many races not only humanoid. They have those poor bastards brain- washed into altering their own children to the Demu style of looks. Then they have research stations like the one I was at, the one that had never seen humanoids before.

There were six ships at that station alone, until I stole one. Three of them hadn't been used for a while, by the looks of them, but they were there. And you're going after the Demu with a lousy forty ships?"

"What else can we do?"

"Unite and conquer, for Chrissakesi Limila's people,