"One million dollars!"
"Whew!" Trella whistled softly. "I'm worth a lot to you! I must be getting close if Keeshwar will pay a million to see me out of the way."
"Trella," I pleaded. "What is it all about? What's behind this mystery?"
"If you turned down a million dollars for my sake, I think I can trust you," she said. "Supposing I was about to invent a new method of locomotion? Can you see where Keeshwar might find me obnoxious?"
"A new kind of space ship?"
Trella shook her head. "A new kind of locomotion. Animals either swim or walk. Man also uses wheels."
"He also can fly. So can birds."
"Flying is simply swimming through the air and crawling, as a worm or snake, is gliding, like swimming. Space ships swim, too, after a fashion. Boats swim through the sea and sleds swim on ice. Therefore we have only three kinds of locomotion: Legs, wheels and sleds. Another might revolutionize everything."
"But there couldn't be any other way to travel. Even the planets 'sled' through ether."
"There is another way. It will open exploration to the furthest limits of the galaxy."