“But in the meantime, there’s no point in our speculating in
a bubble. We think there are other worlds somewhere, and
we’re devising means to make the trip. The other questions,
the pendant ones, just have to be put aside for now. We’ll an-
swer them eventuallythere’s no doubt in my mind about
that. But it may take a long time.”
Stravol grinned ruefully. “I expected no more. In a way, I
think the whole project in crazy. But I’m in it right out to
the end, all the same.”
Shar and Lavon grinned back. All of them had the fever,
and Lavon suspected that their whole enclosed universe would
share it with them before long. He said:
“Then let’s not waste a minute. There’s still a huge mass of
detail to be worked out, and after that, all the hard work will
just have begun. Let’s get moving!”
The five men arose and looked at each other. Their expres-
sions varied, but in all their eyes there was in addition the
same mixture of awe and ambition: the composite face of the
shipwright and of the astronaut.
Then they went out, severally, to begin their voyages.
It was two winter sleeps after Lavon’s disastrous climb be-
yond the sky that all work on the spaceship stopped. By then,
Lavon knew that he had hardened and weathered into that
temporarily ageless. state a man enters after he has just
reached his prime; and he knew also that there were wrinkles
engraved on his brow, to Stay and to deepen.
“Old” Shar, too, had changed, his features losing some of
their delicacy as ‘he came into his maturity. Though the wedge~
shaped bony structure of his face would give him a withdrawn