"You ignore a major factor, my dear. Celestial mechanics. Wrenn's flight was planned for a time when Venus and Earth were in conjunction. Such is not the case now. Earth approaches the Sun, while Venus is at aphelion. And my craft is, as I have said, but a small copy of Wrenn's. Moreover, I have been able to collect only a small amount of fuel.
"There is only one body within our cruising range—Earth's moon. It is my dream that we shall go there—"
I had been listening silently, stunned. Now I came to my senses.
"No, Doctor! I can listen to no more. You forget I am a soldier of the United States army."
"The government has fallen; the last of the democracies is crushed beneath the conqueror's heel, Brian, lad."
"It will rise again. In the hinterlands—"
"—are Totalitarian troops."
"There are still eighty million Americans—"
"And a hundred million aggressors!" He put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't you see, Brian, this is how you can best serve your country? Make this flight with me. We will take your men and my followers—two score men and the women you have already seen—and form a colony on the Moon.
"We will return, then, secretly, for more Americans. And more, and more. We will transfer our democracy to a new soil, there grow in strength and power and wisdom until some day we can reclaim our heritage."