Ultimately, truculently, first one and then another angrily agreed.

“Good!” said Calhoun.  “Now, how many of you dare risk the trip alone?  I’ve got one grain ship warming up.  There are plenty of others around us.  Every one of you can take a ship and half a million bushels to Dara, if you have the nerve!”

The atmosphere changed.  Suddenly they clamored for the task he offered them.  They were still acutely uncomfortable.  He’d bossed them and taught them until they felt capable and glamorous and proud.  Then he’d pinned their ears back.  But if they returned to Dara with four enemy ships and unimaginable quantities of food with which to break the famine....

There was work to be done first, of course.  Only one ship was so far warming up.  Three more had to be entered, in spacesuits, and each had to have its interior warmed so breathable air could exist inside it, and at least part of the stored provisions had to be brought up to reasonable temperature for use on the journey.

Then the overdrive unit had to be inspected and set for the length of journey that a direct overdrive hop to Dara would mean, and Calhoun had to make sure again that each of the four could identify Dara’s sun under all circumstances and aim for it with the requisite high precision, both before going into overdrive and after breakout.  When all that was accomplished, Calhoun might reasonably hope that they’d arrive.  But it wasn’t a certainty.

Still, presently his four students shook hands with him, with the fine tolerance of young men intending much greater achievements than their teacher.  They wouldn’t speak on communicator again, because their messages might be picked up on Weald.

Of course, for this high heroic action to be successful, it had to be performed with the stealth of sneak-thieves.

What seemed a long time passed.  The one ship turned slowly upon some unseen axis.  It wavered back and forth, seeking a point of aim.  A second twisted in its place.  A third put on the barest trace of solar system drive to get clear of the rest.  The fourth—­

One ship vanished.  It had gone into overdrive, heading for Dara at many times the speed of light.  Another.  Two more.

That was all.  The remainder of the fleet hung clumsily in emptiness.  And Calhoun worriedly went over in his mind the lessons he’d given in such a pathetically small number of days.  If the four ships reached Dara, their pilots would be heroes.  Calhoun had presented them with that estate over their bitter objection.  But they would glory in it—­if they reached Dara.

Maril looked at him with very strange eyes.

“Now what?” she asked.

“We hang around,” said Calhoun, “to see if anybody comes up from Weald to find out what’s happened.  It’s always possible to pick up a sort of signal when a ship goes into overdrive.  Usually it doesn’t mean a thing.  Nobody pays any attention.  But if somebody comes out here....”