He was, in a word, bored.

The second day passed. Four hours, thirty-three minutes remained. He tried to hope for interesting events. He knew of no reason to anticipate them. If Thistlethwaite were right, there would be only business dealings aground, and presently an attempt to get to somewhere else in the Glamorgan, and after that—

The whiskery man went down into the engine room and bellowed that everything was set. Link sat by the control board, leaning on his elbows, in a mood of deep skepticism. He didn’t believe anything in particular was likely to happen. Especially he didn’t believe in Thistlethwaite’s story of fabulous wealth. There was nothing as valuable as Thistlethwaite described. Such things simply didn’t exist. But since he’d come this far—

Two minutes to go. One minute twenty seconds. Twenty seconds. Ten… five… four… three… two… one!

He flipped the overdrive switch to off. There were the customary sensations of dizzy fall and vertigo and nausea. Then the Glamorgan floated in normal space, and there was a sun not unreasonably far away, and all the sky was stars. Link was even pessimistic about the identity of the sun, but a spectro-photo identified it. It was truly Sord. There were planets. One. Two. Three. Three had ice-caps; it looked as if two-thirds of its surface was sea, and in general it matched the Directory’s description. It might… just possibly… be inhabited.

A tediously long time later the Glamorgan floated in orbit around the third planet out from its sun. Mottled land masses whipped by below. There were seas, and more land masses.

Thistlethwaite watched in silence. There could be no communication with the ground, even if the ground was prepared to communicate. The Glamorgan’s communication system didn’t work. Link waited for the little man to identify his destination. When it was named there would probably be trouble.