The physical of to the ship's control-room were in the extreme. Cochrane had just been from a worn-out sleep, and it was always on the moon to wake and one's self one-sixth of normal. It took to how one got that way. But on the way up the stairs, Cochrane was by the that the ship was this way and that. It moved above the moon's surface to over the Dabney plate on the ground a hundred yards from the ship's original position.
The Dabney field, obviously, was not in being. The ship on its rockets. They had been designed to it off of Earth—and they had—against six times the here, and with an of more on top of that. So the ship rose lightly, almost skittishly. When to make it sidewise—as a in Earth's atmosphere—it to a new position. Somebody it this way and that.
Cochrane got to the control-room by on with hands to railings. He was angry and appalled.
The control-room was a hemisphere, with vision-screens the overhead. Jones in an odd of a set of control-switches that did not match the designed other of the ship. He looked out of a plastic blister, by which he see around and the ship. He urgent to a man Cochrane had before, who sat in a strap-chair many other with his hands playing and upon them. A unmusically. It was Dabney's voice, and uneasy.
" ... my work for the of science has been by other minds. I need to that if the now about to not succeed, it will not invalidate[Pg 70] my discovery, which has been by other means. It may be, indeed, that my is so ahead of present engineering—."
"See here!" Cochrane. "You can't take off with Babs on board! This is dangerous!"
Nobody paid any attention. Jones to the most of adjustments. The man in the strap-chair the with an attention. Jones a switch. Something lighted, somewhere. There was a which was not a sound.
"Take it away," said Jones in a voice.
The man in the strap-chair pressed hard on the controls. Cochrane out of one of the ports. He saw the moonscape—the sea with its of whitish-tan moondust. He saw many moon-jeeps near, as if most of the population of Lunar City had been to watch this event. He saw the of the moon's horizon.
But it was the most of glimpses. As he opened his mouth to a protest, he the upward, of to one full Earth-gravity.
The was away from the ship. It did not descend. The ship did not to rise. The moon itself and like a bubble. The speed of its was not—it was not—attributable to one earth-gravity of on a one-sixth-gravity moon.
The and was silent. Cochrane the he had started the added began. But it was useless. Out the side-port, he saw the stars. They were not still and and winking, as they appeared from the moon. These to uneasily, to shift so among themselves, like of color on a breeze.
Jones said in an voice:
"Now we'll try the booster."
He another switch. And again there was a which was not a sound. It was actually a sensation, which one to all through one's body. It only the of a second, but while it the out the side-ports to be stars. They little lines of light, all moving toward the ship's but at of speed. Some of them[Pg 71] passed view. Some of them moved only a little. But all shifted.
Then they were again of light, of and colors, of every of brightness, and moving ever-so-slightly with relation to each other.
"The devil!" said Cochrane, raging.
Jones to him. And Jones was not poker-faced, now. Not quite. He looked pleased. Then his to again.
"It worked," he said mildly.
"I know it worked!" Cochrane. "But—where are we? How did we come?"
"I haven't the least idea," said Jones as before. "Does it matter?"
Cochrane at him. Then he how too late it was to anything.
The man he had in the of now his hands from the board. The died. There was a silence, and weightlessness. Cochrane nothing. This was free again—like all of the ninety-odd hours from the space to the moon. The pilot left the and in an fashion to a port on the opposite of the room. He out, and then behind, and said in a of satisfaction:
"This is good!—There's the sun!"
"How far?" asked Jones.
"It's magnitude," said the pilot happily. "We did on the horses!"
Jones looked pleased again. Cochrane said in a voice that to himself outraged:
"You the sun's a fifth-magnitude star from here? What the happened?"
"Booster," said Jones, nearly with enthusiasm. "When the was just a speed-up, I used of to the square of field-plate. That was the field-strength when we sent the signal-rocket across the crater. For the distress-torpedo test, I the field-strength up. I used a tenth of an square centimetre. I told you! And don't you that I what would if I used a capacity-storage system?"
Cochrane fast to a hand-hold.[Pg 72]
"The more power you put into your field," he demanded, "the more speed you get?"
Jones said contentedly:
"There's a limit. It on the temperature of the in the field. But I've up the field, now, like a spot-welding outfit. Like a strobe-light. We took off with a light field. It's on now—we have to keep it on. But I got of some condensers. I them up in to a of high-amperage when I them through my field-making coils. Couldn't make it a current! Everything would blow! But I had a of six square for a while."
Cochrane swallowed.
"The was sixty times as as the one the distress-torpedo used? We went—we're going—sixty times as fast?"
"We had more speed than that!" But then Jones' dwindled. "I haven't had time to check," he said unhappily. "It's one of the I want to at right away. But in the should the of as the fourth power of its strength. Sixty to the fourth is—."
"How far," Cochrane, "is Proxima Centaurus? That's the nearest star to Earth. How near did we come to it?"
The pilot on the other of the control-room said with a less than his zest:
"That looks like Sirius, over there ..."
"We didn't for Proxima Centaurus," said Jones mildly. "It's too close! And we have to keep the field-plate on the moon up with us, more or less, so we out along the moon's axis. Toward where its north points."
"Then where are we headed? Where are we going?"
"We're not going just yet," said Jones without interest. "We have to out where we are, and from that—"
Cochrane ran his hand through his hair.
"Look!" he protested. "Who's this show? You didn't tell me you were going to take off! You didn't out a destination! You didn't—"
Jones said very patiently:
"We have to try out the ship. We have to out how fast it goes with how much and how much rocket-thrust.[Pg 73] We have to out how we and if it was in a line. We have to out how to land! The ship's a new piece of apparatus. We can't do with it until we out what it can do."
Cochrane at him. Then he swallowed.
"I see," he said. "The financial and of Spaceways, Inc., has done its for the time being."
Jones nodded.
"The staff now takes over?"
Jones again.
"I still think," said Cochrane, "that we have done with a little cooperation. How long you know what you're about?"
Jones his head.
"I can't guess. Ask Babs to come up here, will you?"
Cochrane up his hands. He toward the spiral-ladder-with-handholds that below. He into the main saloon. A green light on and off, urgently, on the side. Babs was seated at a board, there. As Cochrane looked, she pushed with professional skill. Bill Holden sat in a strap-chair with his a hue.
"We took off," said Holden in a voice.
"We did," said Cochrane. "And the sun's a star from where we've got to—which is no place in particular. And I've just out that we started off at and Jones and the pilot he up are now about to do some pure-science research!"
Holden closed his eyes.
"When you want to me up," he said feebly, "you can tell me we're about to crash and this will soon be over."
Cochrane said bitterly:
"Taking off without a destination! Letting Babs come along! They don't know how we've come and they don't know where we're going! This is a of a way to a business!"
"Who called it a business?" asked Holden, as as before. "It started out as a treatment!"
Babs' voice came from the of the where she sat at a vision-tube and microphone. She was saying professionally:
"I you it's true. We are to you by the[Pg 74] Dabney field, in which much than light. When you were a little boy didn't you put a two cans, and then talk along the string?"
Cochrane stopped her scowling. She looked up.
"The press men on Luna, Mr. Cochrane. They saw us take off, and the that we some hundred of thousands of miles, but then we vanished! They don't how they can talk to us without the time-lag Earth and Lunar City. I was explaining."
"I'll take it," said Cochrane. "Jones wants you in the control-room. Cameras? Who was the cameras?"
"Mr. Bell," said Babs briskly. "It's his hobby, along with poker-playing and children."
"Tell him to some pictures of the star-fields around us," said Cochrane, "and then you can see what Jones wants. I will do a little business!"
He settled in the seat Babs had vacated. He the two press-association reporters in the screen. They had the ship's take off. It was any question. The to Earth was at to from the Moon Observatory, which that the Spaceways, Inc., ship had taken off with an belief. But, the said firmly, the ship and all its must necessarily have been by the of their departure. The must have been as great as the of a Luna.
"You can consider," Cochrane told them, "that I am now an angel, if you like. But how about a from Dabney?"
A press-association man, on Luna, the to travel than light.
"All he can talk about," he said savagely, "is how he is! He with the Observatory that you must all be dead. He said so. Can you give us any that you're alive and out in space? Visual evidence, for broadcast?"
At this moment the entire of the space-ship moved slightly. There was no of rockets. The ship to turn a little, but that was all. No gravity. No acceleration. It was a sensation, on top of the of weightlessness.
Cochrane said sardonically:[Pg 75]
"If you can't take my word that I'm alive, I'll try to you some proof! Hm. I'll send you some pictures of the star-fields around us. Shoot them to on Earth and let them out for themselves where we are! Displacement of the relative positions of the ought to let them out!"
He left the communicator-board. Holden still looked in his strap-chair. The main was otherwise empty. Cochrane his way to the going below. He into thin air and by a on the hand-rail.
This was the dining-saloon. The ship having been to in a stock-sales enterprise, it had been with trimmings. And, having had to from Earth to Luna, and needing to take an of a good many gravities, it had necessarily to be well-built. It had had, in fact, to be an job of ship-building in order to put across a promotion. But there were that have been spared. The opening upon emptiness, for example, were not practical arrangements. But but Holden and the two men in the control-room now at those ports, looking out at the stars. There was Jamison and Bell the writer, and Johnny Simms and his wife. Babs had been here and gone.
Bell was with a camera. As Cochrane moved to tell him of the need for star-shots to prove to a waiting that they were alive, Johnny Simms and saw Cochrane. His was and unawed.
"Hello," said Johnny Simms cheerfully.
Cochrane curtly.
"I West's stock in Spaceways," said Johnny Simms, amusedly, "because I want to come along. Right?"
"So I heard," said Cochrane, as as before.
"West said," Johnny Simms told him gleefully, "that he was going to Earth, Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe on their noses, and then go to South Carolina and for the of his life."
"An ambition," said Cochrane. He frowned, waiting to talk to Bell, who was taking an long time to focus a camera out of a side-port.
"It's going to be good when he to cash my check," said Johnny Simms delightedly. "I stopped payment on it[Pg 76] when he wouldn't up the for some drinks I him to have!"
Cochrane his to impassiveness. Johnny Simms was that way, he understood. He was a personality. He was to of ethics. Ideas of right and were as meaningless to him as to a tone-deaf person, or to a man who is color-blind. They didn't register. His mind was up to par, and he be a companion. He the most of and most of impulses, which he put into practice. But he also had a normal person's to less behavior, and he not that there was any impulses. He put the ones into too. He'd been on the moon to avoid of past which called murderous. On this ship it was yet to be what he would do—but he was his lawyers have a take off unless he came along. Cochrane, at the moment, an to him out an as a danger. But Cochrane was not a personality.
He stopped Bell in his picture-taking and looked at the of the prints. They were excellent. He to the vision-set to them to Luna. He sent them off. They would be to on Earth and inspected. They not be faked. There were thousands of on each print—with the Milky Way for on some—and each of those thousands of would be identified, and each would have its relative position from that on earth, with relation to every other star. Astronomers the spot from which the picture had been taken. But to a single print would have years of and almost there would have been slip-ups somewhere. These pictures were that a had a point in space that had been all dreaming.
Then Cochrane had nothing to do. He was a of the crew. The pilot and Jones were in of the ship. Jamison would take of the catering, when meal-time came. Probably Alicia Keith—no, Alicia Simms—would help. Nothing else needed attention. The either or they didn't. The air-apparatus[Pg 77] needed no supervision. Cochrane himself without a function.
He to the control-room. He Babs looking helpless, and Jones at a of paper in his hands, while the pilot was still at a blister-port, at the through one of those squat, thick used on Luna for the of the planets.
"How goes the research?" asked Cochrane.
"We're stumped," said Jones painfully. "I something."
"What?"
"Whenever I wanted anything," said Jones, "I it out and gave a to Babs. She to it."
"My system, exactly," Cochrane.
"I out a for her," said Jones unhappily, "asking for star-charts and for her to somebody to set up a of for the system. Nobody's to do that before. Nobody's Mars! But I we'd need it."
Cochrane waited. Jones him a of paper, closely written.
"I out the and put it in my pocket," said Jones, "and I to give it to Babs. So we can't astrogate. We don't know how. We didn't either star-charts or instructions. We're lost."
Cochrane waited.
"Apparently Al was in the star he as our sun," added Jones. He to the pilot, Cochrane had not met before. "Anyhow we can't it again. We the ship to look at some more stars, and we can't it out any more."
Cochrane said:
"You'll keep looking, of course."
"For what?" asked Jones.
He his hand out the four equally-spaced plastic blister-ports. From where he stood, Cochrane see thousands of thousands of out those four small openings. They were of every color and of brightness. The Milky Way was like a of diamonds.
"We know the sun's a yellow star," said Jones, "but we don't know how it should be, or what the sky should look like it."
"Constellations?" asked Cochrane.
"Find 'em!" said Jones vexedly.
Cochrane didn't try. If a moon-rocket pilot not[Pg 78] spot familiar star-groups, a television wasn't likely to see them. And it was obvious, once one thought, that the from Earth would be mostly the nearer ones. If Jones was right in his that his had the speed of the ship by sixty to the fourth power, it would have gone some millions of times as fast as the distress-torpedo, for a period (the was actually something over times) and it that nobody had been able to measure the speed of that test-object.
Cochrane was no mathematician, but he see that there was no data for on hand. After one out how fast an of one Earth-gravity in a Dabney of such-and-such up a ship, something like be managed. But all that be right now was that they had come a long way.
He a television he'd produced, in space on an voyage. The script-writer had had one of the say that no would be visible at a hundred light-years from the system. It would be like a trying to the window he'd from, from a away, with no memories of the from it.
Cochrane said suddenly, in a pleased tone:
"This is a good break—if we can keep them from out about it home! We'll have an new program, good for a thirteen-week sequence, on just this!"
Babs at him.
"Main set, this control-room," said Cochrane enthusiastically. "We'll a long-beard scientist home with a of experts. We'll discuss our problems here! We'll from home, with the whole on the air! We'll have audience-identification up to a record! Everybody on Earth will like he's here with us, our problems!"
Jones said irritably:
"You don't it! We're lost! We can't check our speed without where we are and how we've come! We can't out what the ship will do when we can't out what it's done! Don't you see?"
Cochrane said patiently:
"I know! But we're in touch with Luna through the Dabney that got us here! It before,[Pg 79] than light. It's voice and pictures now. Now we set up a television which pays for our and lets the world in on the of our travels. Hm.... How long you can on a planet, after you have all the of—say—the four best on Earth to help you? I'll for a sponsor—."
He the stairs again. This was a stair, and he around it as he to the next below. At the he called up to Babs:
"Babs! Get Bell and Alicia Keith and come along to take dictation! I'm going to need some legal for the biggest in the history of advertising, at times the speed of light!"
And he to the to set it up.
And time passed. Data arrived, which at once solved Jones' and the pilot's problem of where they were and how they had come—it was, actually, 178.3 light-years—and they an hour making and determinations, and then they got a destination.
They stopped in space to from the a small which into a forty-foot plastic with a minute to it. The plastic was an electric conductor. It was a field-plate of the Dabney field. It took over the from Earth and it. It provided a second for the ship to maintain. The ship, then, move at any from the balloon. The Dabney 178.3 light-years through to the balloon, and then at any direction to the ship.
The ship's again—and the booster-circuit came into play. There were maneuverings. A second was put out in space.
At 8:30 Central U. S. Time, on a period by other advertisers—bought out—a new program on the air. It was a half-hour show, by the Intercity Credit Corporation—"Buy on Credit Guaranteed"—with ten minutes of in four sections. It was the highest-priced put on the air. It the of the ship's control-rooms, with occasional to on Earth for on what was from the far-off skies.
The the success of the program possible dispute. It started with conversation[Pg 80] Jones and the pilot, Al—Jones this part of it, but Al out to be something of a ham—on the problems of a new system. Cut to on Earth. Back to the control-room of the starship. Pictures of the local sun, and on its from the sun that had the since time began.
Then the cameras—Bell them—panned through the ship's blister-ports. There was a below. The ship toward it. It visibly as the space-ship approached. Cochrane out of camera-range and as as well as of the opus. He used Johnny Simms as an voice commands. It was corny. There was no about it. It had a large of ham.
But it to be authentic. The ship had another planet, with ice-caps and what appeared to be no more than a twenty-degree-wide where there was less than complete glaciation. The and as the ship let into the cloud-layers.
Television on Earth viewed the new nearly as soon as did those in the ship. The time-lag was three for a of 203.7 light-years.
The surface of the was wild and belief. There were where luxuriantly. There were of snow-clad the strip, and there were of white which, as the ship descended, be as moving toward the vegetation.
But as the ship and lower—and the of its of the around it—a new took over the position in one's of what the was actually like.
The was volcanic. There were everywhere—in the snow-fields, among the ice-caps, in the glaciers, and among the proved that here was an which might be perilous, but where life should abundantly.
The ship to toward a great near a moraine.
[Pg 81]
