He felt queer, acting as the supervisor of an educational institution in space.  He did not like it.  There were twenty-four men beside himself crowded into the Med Ship’s small interior.  They got in each other’s way.  They trampled on each other.  There was always somebody eating, and always somebody sleeping, and there was no need whatever for the background tape to keep the ship from being intolerably quiet.  But the air system worked well enough, except once when the reheating unit quit and the air inside the ship went down below freezing before the trouble could be found and corrected.

The journey to Weald, this time, took seven days because of the training program in effect.  Calhoun bit his nails over the delay.  But it was necessary for each of the students to make his own line-ups on Weald’s sun, and compute distances, and for each of them to practise maneuverings that would presently be called for.  Calhoun hoped desperately that preparations for active warfare did not move fast on Weald.

He believed, however, that in the absence of direct news from Dara, Wealdian officials would take the normal course of politicos.  They had proclaimed the ship from Orede an attack from Dara.  Therefore, they would specialize on defensive measures before plumping for offense.  They’d get patrol ships out to spot invasion ships long before they worked on a fleet to destroy the blueskins.  It would meet the public demand for defense.

Calhoun was right.  The Med Ship made its final approach to Weald under Calhoun’s own control.  He’d made brightness-measurements on his previous journey and he used them again.  They would not be strictly accurate, because a sunspot could knock all meaning out of any reading beyond two decimal places.  But the first breakout was just far enough from the Wealdian system for Calhoun to be able to pick out its planets with the electron telescope at maximum magnification.  He could aim for Weald itself, allowing, of course, for the lag in the apparent motion of its image because of the limited speed of light.  He tried the briefest of overdrive hops, and came out within the solar system and well inside any watching patrol.

That was pure fortune.  It continued.  He’d broken through the screen of guard ships in undetectable overdrive.  He was within half an hour’s solar system drive of the grain fleet.  There was no alarm, at first.  Of course radars spotted the Med Ship as an object, but nobody paid attention.  It was not headed for Weald.  It was probably assumed to be a guard boat itself.  Such mistakes do happen.

Again from the storage space from which supplies had been removed, Calhoun produced vacuum suits.  The four first students went out, each escorting a less-accustomed neophyte and all fastened firmly together with space ropes.  They warmed the interiors of four ships and went on to others.  Presently there were eight ships making ready for an interstellar journey, each with a scared but resolute new pilot familiarizing himself with its controls.  There were sixteen ships.  Twenty.  Twenty-three.