"Maybe I won't be back," he declared. "You see, it isn't just an ordinary trip. It may take a long, long time. Something might happen. I'm going out to see the Solar System."
Belmont laughed lightly, reared back in his chair, matching fingertips. "Oh, yes. One of the tours. Nothing dangerous about them. Nothing at all. You needn't worry about that. I went on one a couple of years ago. Mighty interesting...."
"Not one of the tours," interrupted Meek. "Not for me. I have a ship of my own."
Belmont thumped forward in his chair, looking almost startled.
"A ship of your own!"
"Yes, sir," Oliver admitted, squirming uncomfortably. "Over thirty years I've saved for it ... for it and the other things I'll need. It sort of got to be ... well, an obsession, you might say."
"I see," said Belmont. "You planned it."
"Yes, sir, I planned it."
Which was a masterpiece of understatement.
For Belmont could not know and Oliver Meek, stoop-shouldered, white-haired bookkeeper, could not tell of those thirty years of thrift and dreams. Thirty years of watching ships of the void taking off from the space port, just outside the window where he sat hunched over ledgers and calculators. Thirty years of catching scraps of talk from the men who ran those ships. Men and ships with the alien dust of far off planets still clinging to their skins. Ships with strange marks and scars upon them, and men with strange words upon their tongues.