"Quite all right, madame. You got here in time, and that's what counts.

But you'll have to hurry to get to your cabin before takeoff."

"Wait!" said Steward Davis. His long face had come to life as he looked at her admiringly and extended his tray of flowers.

"White roses? For me?" she said.

"Yes, madame. Compliments of the Star Line."

Turning her head, she moved away. "Thank you, but I'm not ready to wear white roses, yet. It's not that they're not lovely, but--" she raised her arms, burdened with their scented blooms, "you see that I already have so many flowers, and the red rose is still for the living!"

Davis banged his tray to the floor and shoved it aside with his foot.

"All right, madame. Now we'll have to hurry. We'll have to run!"

A final bell rang, a final light flashed.

On the floor below the ship, the crowds of relatives and wistful stay-at-homes gazed up; at the beautiful metal creation, poised on its slender fins, nose pointed towards the opened dome.

A vibration began, a gentle, barely perceptible shuddering of the ground which increased in frequency. It beat through the floor, into their feet, until their whole bodies quivered with the racing pulse that grew faster, faster, as the twenty-four total conversion Piles in the ship released their power. Then, as the people watched, between one instant and the next, the ship vanished. In the blink of an eyelid she had shifted to hypers.p.a.ce.

The _Star Lord_ had begun her maiden voyage.

By the second day out, most of the pa.s.sengers felt completely at home.

The ship had become a separate world, and the routines they had left behind them on earth, and the various routines they would take up again some six weeks from now on Almazin III seemed equally remote and improbable. Life on the _Star Lord_ was the only reality.

She moved through the uncharted realms of hypers.p.a.ce, travelling in one hour's time as measured by earth watches, more than twenty light years distance, if measured in the units of real s.p.a.ce. The ship itself was quiet. The vibration of the takeoff had ended in a moment, and now the pa.s.sengers could hear no noise and hum of motors, could feel no motion against swelling waves, no battering against a barrier of uneven air.

The artificial gravity induced a sense of security as absolute as though the ship were resting on living rock.

Although most of the cabins were small, they were cleverly designed to provide the maximum of comfort, even the least expensive of them. For the very wealthy, the rulers of the galaxy's finance, the owners of the galaxy's industries, the makers of the galaxy's entertainment, there were the luxury cabins. The floors glowed with the soft reds of oriental rugs, the lounge chairs were upholstered in fabrics gleaming with gold thread. Cream-colored satin curtains fluttered in an artificial breeze at the simulated windows, and on the walls hung tranquil landscapes in dull gold frames. To those who had engaged them, the ornate cabins seemed only appropriate to their own eminent positions in life.

Delicious meals were served three times a day in the several dining rooms, the softly lighted Bar was never closed, and every day three theaters offered a varied program of stereo-dramas. There was even--the most marvelous, daring, expensive luxury of all--a swimming pool. The pool was small, and was open only to the first cabin pa.s.sengers, but the fact that a ship travelling to a distant solar system could afford room enough for a pool, and extra weight for the water needed to fill it, seemed evidence that man had achieved a complete conquest of the inconveniences of s.p.a.ce travel.

One luxury, however, freely accessible to even the poorest sheep herder on earth, was denied the pa.s.sengers of the _Star Lord_.

They could not see the stars. They could not see the sky.

The ship had portholes, of course, and observation rooms which could be opened if at any time she cruised in normal s.p.a.ce, but the ports and observation windows were closed now, for there was nothing to see. The ship was surrounded by blackness, the impenetrable, unknowable blackness, of hypers.p.a.ce, but this black emptiness did not frighten the pa.s.sengers because they never bothered to think about it.

But the builders of the ship had designed it so that even the simple pleasure of looking at a friendly sky should not be denied its pa.s.sengers. An artificial day and night of the appropriate length was maintained by the dimming and brightening of lights, and the main lounges were bounded with special walls which looked like windows, through which could be glimpsed bright summer days, fleecy clouds drifting over a blue sky, and, in the evenings, soft starlight.

Every pa.s.senger should have been soothed into contentment by these devices, but by the end of the first week, Burl Jasperson was restless.

He hated to sit still, and the hours and the days seemed endless. His bald head and portly body were a familiar sight as he roamed the ship, inspecting every detail as though it were his personal responsibility.

Once a day he called on Captain Evans to check on the progress of the _Star Lord_, once a day he chafed under the cold courtesy of the Captain's manner, and then wandered on. In his jacket he wore his pocket recorder, and he was momentarily cheered whenever he found an excuse for making a memorandum:

"Chairs in lounge should be two centimeters lower. Sell Deutonium shares. How about monogrammed linens for the first cabins? Install gymnasium?"

As he walked, he murmured these thoughts to his recorder, and each night his meek and colorless secretary sat up late to transcribe them into the locked notebook which was his special charge, after Jasperson had taken his sleeping pills and crawled into bed.

On the evening of the eighth night out, Burl Jasperson wandered into the Bar, and drummed his pudgy fingers on the table as he waited to give his order.

"A gla.s.s of ice water, and a Moon Fizz. And be sure you make it with genuine absinthe. You fellows seem to think you can get away with making it with _'arak_, and your customers won't know the difference. Well, just remember I'm one customer that does, and I want _real_ absinthe."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Jasperson," said the Bar steward.

Turning restlessly in his chair, Burl let his eyes stop on the white-haired old gentleman beside him, happily consuming a brandy and soda. After a moment's inspection, he stuck out his hand confidently.

"My name's Jasperson. Everything all right? Enjoying the trip?"

The pink skin wrinkled in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I am Wilson Larrabee. Everything's fine, thank you, except that the ship is almost too luxurious for a man of my background. A professor's salary does not often permit him indulgences of this kind."

"You a professor? Of what?"

"Various things at various times. Philosophy, physics, Elizabethan drama, history of science--"

"Myself, I never could understand why a sensible man would go into that business. No money. No prestige. Never doing anything, just reading and thinking."

"Every man to his taste," said Larrabee.

"Yes, within limits. But the things some of you professors think up!

Most of the ideas do more harm than good, scaring people to death, hurting business. You'd think they ought to have more sense of responsibility!"

He tasted his drink, then nodded knowingly at the bartender. "This is something like! _Real_ absinthe."

Professor Larrabee studied his companion. "I can hardly suppose, Mr.

Jasperson, that you hold professors responsible for all the ills of the world. And yet you seem disturbed. Did you have something in particular in mind?"

"Yes. The Thakura Ripples!"

Amus.e.m.e.nt vanished from the professor's eyes. "What about them?"

"Why are people so afraid of them? As far as I can see, they're just a piece of nonsense thought up by a dreamy-eyed physics professor, and he hypnotized people into believing in them. But as I was telling Captain Evans last night, they've never been seen, never been measured, and there's nothing at all to prove that they have any existence outside the mind of a madman. And yet people are afraid of them!"

"And just what are the Thakura Ripples?" said Alan Chase, drawing up a chair. "Waiter, I'll have a s.p.a.cecap."

"Feeling a little better tonight, Alan?" asked his friend.

"Some, thanks. I just had a checkup from Dr. Willoughby, and he thinks I'm more than holding my own. Now go on about the Ripples. Where are they? What do they do?"