"I—I don't know exactly," she confessed. "I don't understand it, Jon."
Saxon's eyes narrowed. He had intercepted that dread of the expedition's fate before. He had felt it emanating from hundreds of individuals otherwise unrelated. It was like a hypnotically imposed command: "Don't venture into the Stellar Depths!"
And it always stemmed from the subconscious, the regions of the human mind telepathically closed to him. At first he'd been inclined to think it was dread of the unknown. But now he was not so sure.
Facts, Saxon knew, were assimilated by the subconscious, later to emerge as hunches and intuition. He had grown to believe that there must be reason behind this universal fear of stellar space.
He had even felt it in himself; in his chief, Villainowski; in his co-workers at Government's Bureau of Research. It was a very real feeling that nothing but disaster for the human race could come of this venture to the stars.
II
Ileth's apartment was on the ninety-eighth level, flush against the transparent plastic dome which hermetically sealed in Adirondaka.
Jon Saxon followed the girl out of the lift, watching her with admiration.
She was a slim, long legged creature in chartreuse green, jodhpur-like trousers that moulded her slender waist and rounded hips with amazing fidelity before flaring at her thighs.