This

“Why not let Jupiter help us? he asked. He could be a lot of help. Russ stared for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, with a sob of gladness, he reached out a hand, shoved over a lever. Mirrors of anti-entropy shifted, assumed different angles, and the Invincible sheered off. They were no longer retreating directly from the sun, but at an angle, quartering off across the solar system. Greg grinned. We're falling behind Jupiter now. Letting Jupiter run away from us, as he circles his orbit, following the sun, adds miles per second to our velocity of retreat, even if it doesn't show on the dial.”

“Suddenly the invincible shuddered and seemed to totter in space. As if something, some mighty force, had struck the ship a terrific blow. The needle swung swiftly backward, reached one mile a second, dipped a half a mile. Russ sat bolt upright, holding his breath, his teeth clenched with the death grip upon the pipe-stem. Craven had blasted with everything he had. He had used every trickle of power in the accumulators, all the power he had been storing up. Russ leapt from the chair and raced to the periscopic mirror. Stooping he stared into it. Far back in space, like a silver bauble, swung Craven's ship.”

“Just what was our top speed? he demanded. Russ grinned. Ten thousand times the speed of light, he said. Greg whistled soundlessly. A long way from home. Far away the stars were tiny pinpoints, like little crystals shining by the reflection of a light.”

“No joke, said Greg grimly. I thought you might have guessed. I'm going to leave you here. Leave us here, rode Stuttsman. Keep your shirt on, snapped Greg, just for a while, until we can go back to the solar system and finish a little job we're doing. Then we'll come back and get you.”

“There had been a day when men had maintained one couldn't go faster than light. Also men had claimed that it would be impossible to force nature to give up the secret of material energy. But here they were, speeding along faster than light, their engines roaring with the power of material energy. They were ploughing a new space road, staking out a new path across the deserts of space, pioneering far beyond the last frontier.”

“Manning thinks he can keep us out here, but he's wrong. We'll be in the solar system less than a week after he gets there. Chambers stifled a gasp, tried to speak calmly. You mean this? Of course I mean it. I don't waste my time with foolish jokes. You have the secret of material energy. Not that, the scientist growled. But I have something else as valuable. I have the secret of Manning's drive. I know what it is that enables him to exceed the speed of light, to go ten thousand times as fast as light.”

“Spectroscopic examination. That collector-field of ours gathers energy just like a burning-glass. You've seen a burning-glass, haven't you? He stared at Stutzman, directing the question at him. Stutzman shuffled awkwardly, unhappily. Well, Craven went on, I use that for a telescope. Gathered the light from the suns, and analysed it.”

“The light varied with a periodic irregularity. The chronometers aren't working exactly right out here, so I can't give you any explanation in terms of hours, but I find a number irregularly recurring changes in light intensity and character, and that proves the presence of a number of planetary bodies circling the star. That's the only way one could explain the fluctuations for the G-type star is a steady type.”

“Just a little matter of variation in the alloy, Graven explained, crystallization of the alloy, forming those little prisms and pyramids. As a result, you get a surface thousands of times greater than in the old type. Helps you absorb every bit of the energy.”

“His brain hummed with dreams. Old dreams revived again. Old dreams of conquest and of empire. Dreams of a power that held a solar system in its grip.”

“Stutzman's face twisted into an even more exaggerated grin. This, he said, is mutiny. I'm taking over. He laughed at them. No, you're calling the crew. They're with me. Damn you! shouted Chambers, taking a step forward. He halted as Stutzman jerked the pistol up. Forget it, Chambers, you're just second man from now on.”

“That, said Craven, isn't our sun. It has planets, but it isn't our sun. Chambers stepped quickly to Craven, reached out a hand, and hoisted him from the chair, shook him. You must be joking. That has to be the sun. Craven struggled free from Chambers' clutch, spoke in an even voice. I never joke. We made a mistake, that's all, I hadn't meant to tell you yet.”

“I wish you could see it my way, Manning, he said. There's no place for me on earth. No place for me in the solar system. You see, I tried and failed. I'm just a has-been back there. He laughed quietly. Somehow, I can't imagine myself coming back in the role of the defeated tribal leader, chained to your chariots, so to speak.”

“Man doesn't want to live under scientific government. He doesn't want to be protected against blunders. He wants what he calls freedom. The right to do things he wants to do, even if it means making a damn fool of himself. The right to rise to great heights and tumble to equally low depths. That's human nature. I rule it out. Bet you can't rule out human nature.”

“With the new material-energy engines, life on every planet would be possible now, even easy. The cost of manufacture, mining, shipping, across the vast distances between the planets, would be only a fraction of what it had been when man had been forced to rely upon the unwieldy, expensive accumulator system of supplying life-giving power. Now Mars would have power of her own, even Pluto could generate her own.”