Complacently, like one who knows he is dreaming and that therefore these strange things are not really happening and so need not be taken seriously, Birrel listened to the voices of the men, speaking technical words of no meaning to him as they went through what was apparently a routine check. Then the radarman said,
"They're right with us."
Thile grunted. "Full acceleration," he said. "Build up as fast as you can. Maybe their generators aren't as good as ours."
The whining began again but on a different note. Birrel pictured himself inside an iron egg flying through space—what kind of space?—at double, triple, quadruple the speed of light. He erased the thought from his mind as quickly as he could. He said to Kara,
"Why haven't people done more star-travelling? You obviously have a workable drive."
"We haven't had the time until recently," Kara said. "The Irrians kept us too busy. Then the few exploratory trips we did make to neighboring systems were discouraging. In most cases the planets were uninhabitable, and the ones that did have life forms were pretty awful. Our government hasn't encouraged star flight. I think they're afraid of what might come flying back our way."
The ship quivered and trembled. Birrel thought he could almost feel the atoms crawling in the metal under his hand.
"Do you ever hit things?" he asked. "Like stars, I mean."
"Not very often. But I believe the results are quite spectacular. You become a nova almost at once."