Only a month before, the Technarch McKenzie had calmly sent five men to probable death in the name of Terran progress. But now, it seemed, those five men had not really died after all, and McKenzie’s normally rock-hard face reflected inner tension and the strain of anticipation.

The message, reaching him in the Archonate Center, had been brief to the point of curtness. “Luna detection center reports return to this system of the XV-ftl. Landing at Central Australia spaceport requested for 1200 hours EST.”

The Technarch read the message through twice, nodding, even permitting himself the luxury of a slow smile. So they were back, were they? After a successful trip? By the Hammer, he thought, we’ll see men in the far galaxies yet! And in my Archonate, heaven willing!

His nature was too stern to allow him more than a moment of gloating pride. He had gambled; he had won; and perhaps his name would ring in the galleries of history for millennia. No matter about that, though. The experimental faster-than-light ship was returning safely. It behooved him, as Terra’s Technarch, to be present at the landing.

He depressed a communicator stud. “Set up a transmat connection to the Central Australia spaceport right away, Naylor. Immediate departure.”

“At once, Excellency.”

McKenzie stared for a moment at the big, thick fingers of his hands as they lay before him on the desk. Hands like those could never wire a circuit, wield a surgeon’s excising vibro-knife, or tune the fine controls on a thermonuclear generator. But they were hands that could choke the life from a man, and they were hands that could write, “If we remain bound forever to the limiting velocity of light, we will be as snails seeking to cross a continent. We must not be lulled into complacency by the slow expansion of our colonial empire. We must surge ever outward; and the faster-than-light spacedrive must be the be-all and end-all of our research effort.”