—Among the other things lunatics make: their own version of truth. - John Brunner

The day shall dawn when never child but may Go forth upon the sward secure to play. No cruel wolves shall trespass in their nooks, Their lore of lions shall come from picture-books.

The real Earth was the place from which men would cheerfully run away to enlist as lowly troopers on a ship like this one, to be cocooned and made to hibernate while light-years ticked away, to be revived and ordered to battle stations against an enemy who might not appear, to return to mindless sleep until the time came for paying-off and discharge – most likely on some other human planet than the race’s overcrowded pock-faced homeworld.

Not that a car would have been much faster anyway, what with the police posts at state lines, the searches, the restricted zones not merely in cities—one expected that during August—but right out in the country, in agricultural areas. Because of hijackers after food trucks, of course.