He paused, then went on. “I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings, sir, but that’s what I honestly think. I’m a practical flefnobe, and I believe in practical things.”

“How can you say—nothing really important?” In spite of Rabd’s apology, the professor’s mental “voice” as it registered on Manship’s brain positively undulated with indignation. “Why, the greatest concern of flefnobe science at the moment is to achieve a voyage to some part of the outer galaxy where the distances between stars are prodigious compared to their relative denseness here at the galactic center.

“We can travel at will between the fifty-four planets of our system and we have recently achieved flight to several of our neighboring suns, but going so far as even the middle areas of the galaxy, where this specimen originates, remains as visionary a project today as it was before the dawn of extra-atmospheric flight over two centuries ago.”

“Right!” Rabd broke in sharply. “And why? Because we don’t have the ships capable of making the journey? Not on your semble-swol, Professor! Why, since the development of the Bulvonn Drive, any ship in the flefnobe navy or merchant marine, down to my little three-jet runabout, could scoot out to a place as far as astronomical unit 649-301-3—to name just one example—and back without even hotting up her engines. But we don’t. And for a very good reason.”

Clyde Manship was now listening—or receiving—so hard that the two halves of his brain seemed to grind against each other. He was very much interested in astronomical unit 649-301-3 and anything that made travel to it easier or more difficult, however exotic the method of transportation employed might be by prevailing terrestrial standards.

“And the reason, of course,” the young explorer went on, “is a practical one. Mental dwindle. Good old mental dwindle. In two hundred years of solving every problem connected with space travel, we haven’t so much as pmbffed the surface of that one. All we have to do is go a measly twenty light-years from the surface of our home planet and mental dwindle sets in with a bang. The brightest crews start acting like retarded children and, if they don’t turn back right away, their minds go out like so many lights: they’ve dwindled mentally smack down to zero.”