Voyage to Procyon

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In the deepest level of the mighty Starship 1, Peter Conroy lay hidden in a cornfield. Around him waved the tall stalks of ripening corn; high overhead, near the distant ceiling of the level, blazed the actinic lights that irradiated the broad field.

And nearby, Conroy could hear the stealthy footsteps of Bayliss Kent and his men, searching desperately for him. They had to find him—and Peter Conroy had to keep from being found.

Crouching low, he edged forward between the bending stalks. Kent thought he had Conroy hemmed in, that he had the entrance to the cornfield guarded. Conroy grinned. He had been brought up in the Agronomy section; Kent and his men hadn’t. It made a difference.

He looked around carefully, then began moving slowly away from them on his hands and knees. If I can only reach the irrigation tube in time, he thought. If—

It had been over fifty years since the Starship 1 had left Earth. For more than half a century, the great ship had been headed toward the star Procyon and the planets around it—habitable planets, detected by the Lunar telescope. Fifty years, and there was still a hundred years of flight yet to come before the huge ship reached her destination.

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