dead of night?'
'I got to worrying,' said the man in the port. 'You were gone longer than I thought you would be. Just getting ready to set out and hunt for you.'
'You're always worrying,' Gus growled at him. 'Between you and this outlandish world, I'm fed up. Trevor can find someone else to do this kind of work from here on out.'
He scrambled up the steps into the ship. 'Get going,' he told the other man tersely. 'We're getting out of here.'
He turned to close the port, but Sutton already had it closed.
Gus took two steps backward, brought up against an anchored chair and stood there, grinning.
'Look at what we got,' he said. 'Hey, Pinky, look at what followed me back home.'
Sutton smiled at them grimly. 'If you gentlemen have no objection, I'll hitch a ride with you.'
'And if we have objections?' Pinky asked.
'I'm riding this ship,' Sutton told him. 'With you or without you. Take your choice.'
'This is Sutton,' Gus told Pinky. 'The Mr. Sutton. Trevor will be glad to see you, Sutton.'
Trevor…Trevor. That was three times he had heard the name, and somewhere else he had heard it once before. He stood with his back against the closed port and his mind went back to another ship and another two men.
'Trevor,' Case had said, or had it been Pringle who had said it? 'Trevor? Why, Trevor is the head of the corporation.'
'I've been looking forward, all these years,' Sutton told him, 'to meeting Mr. Trevor. He and I will have a lot to talk about.'
'Get her going, Pinky,' Gus said. 'And send ahead a message. Trevor will want to break out the guard of honor for us. We're bringing Sutton back.'
XLII
Trevor picked up a paper clip and flipped it at an inkwell on the desk. The clip landed in the ink.
'Getting pretty good,' said Trevor. 'Hit it seven times out of every ten. Used to be I missed it seven times out of every ten.'
He looked at Sutton, studying him.
'You look like an ordinary man,' he said. 'I should be able to talk with you and make you understand.'
'I haven't any horns,' said Sutton, 'if that is what you mean.'
'Nor,' said Trevor, 'any halo, either, so far as I'm concerned.'
He flipped another paper clip and it missed the inkwell.
'Seven out of ten,' said Trevor.
He flipped another one and it was a hit. Ink spouted up and spattered on the desk.
'Sutton,' said Trevor, 'you know a great deal about destiny. Have you ever thought of it in terms of manifest destiny?'
Sutton shrugged. 'You're using an antiquated term. Pure and simple propaganda of the nineteenth century. There was a certain nation that wore that one threadbare.'
'Propaganda,' Trevor said. 'Let's call it psychology. You say a thing so often and so well that after a time everyone believes it. Even, finally, yourself.'
'This manifest destiny,' said Sutton. 'For the human race, I presume?'
'Naturally,' said Trevor. 'After all, we're the animals that would know how to use it to the best advantage.'
'You pass up a point,' declared Sutton. 'The humans don't need it. Already they think they are great and right and holy. Certainly, you don't need to propagandize them.'
'In the short view, you are right,' said Trevor. 'But in the short view only.'
He stabbed a sudden finger at Sutton. 'Once we have the galaxy in hand, what do we do then?'
'Why,' said Sutton. 'Why, I suppose…'
'That's exactly it,' said Trevor. 'You don't know where you're going. Nor does the human race.'
'And manifest destiny?' asked Sutton. 'If we had manifest destiny, it would be different?'
Trevor's words were scarcely more than a whisper. 'There are other galaxies, Sutton. Greater even than this one. Many other galaxies.'
Good Lord! thought Sutton.
He started to speak and then closed his mouth and sat stiffly in his chair.
Trevor's whisper speared at him from across the desk.
'Staggers you, doesn't it?' he said.
Sutton tried to speak aloud, but his voice came out a whisper, too.
'You're mad, Trevor. Absolutely mad.'
'The long-range view,' said Trevor. 'That is what we need. The absolutely unshakable belief in human destiny, the positive and all-inclusive conviction that Man is meant not only to take over this galaxy alone but all the galaxies, the entire universe.'
'You should live long enough,' said Sutton, sudden mockery rising to his tongue.
'I won't see it, of course,' said Trevor. 'And neither will you. Nor will our children's children or their children for many generations.'
'It will take a million years,' Sutton told him.
'More than a million years,' Trevor told him calmly. 'You have no idea, no conception of the scope of the universe. In a million years we'll be getting a good start…'
'Then, why, for the love of heaven, do you and I sit here and quibble about it?'
'Logic,' said Trevor.
'There is no real logic,' Sutton declared, 'in planning a million years ahead. A man can plan his own lifetime, if he wishes, and there is some logic in that. Or the life of his children, and there still would be some logic in it…and maybe in the life of his grandchildren. But beyond that there can be no logic.'
'Sutton,' asked Trevor, 'did you ever hear of a corporation?'
'Why, yes, of course, but…'
'A corporation could plan for a million years,' said Trevor. 'It could plan very logically.'
'A corporation is not a man,' said Sutton. 'It is not an entity.'
'But it is,' insisted Trevor. 'An entity composed of men and created by men to carry out their wishes. It is a living, operative concept that is handed down from one generation to another to carry out a plan too vast to be accomplished in the lifetime of one man alone.'
'Your corporation publishes books, too, doesn't it?' asked Sutton.
Trevor stared at him. 'Who told you that?' he snapped.
'A couple of men by the name of Case and Pringle,' Sutton said. 'They tried to buy my book for your corporation.'
'Case and Pringle are out on a mission,' Trevor said. 'I had expected them back…'
'They won't be coming back,' said Sutton.
'You killed them,' Trevor said, flatly.
'They tried to kill me first,' said Sutton. 'I'm awfully hard to kill.'
'That would have been against my orders, Sutton. I do not want you killed.'
'They were on their own,' said Sutton. 'They were going to sell my carcass to Morgan.'
There was no way of telling, Sutton thought, how you hit this man. There was no difference of expression in his eyes, no faintest flicker of change across his face.
'I appreciate your killing them,' said Trevor. 'It saves me the bother.'
He flicked a clip at the inkwell and it was a hit.
'It's logical,' he said, 'that a corporation should plan a million years ahead. It provides a framework within which a certain project may be carried forward without interruption although the personnel in charge should change
