Hours later, Arcot consciousness. It was in the ship. He was still in his seat in the room. The screens were in place, and all was perfectly peaceful. He didn't know the ship was or through space at a speed than light, and his was to see.
He out with an arm that to be of dust, to crumble; an arm that would not behave. His nerves were jumping wildly. He the he was seeking, and the screens as the them back.
They were in hyperspace; them the ships.
Arcot looked around, trying to decide what to do, but his brain was clogged. He tired; he wanted to sleep. Scarcely able to think, he the others to their rooms and them in their bunks. Then he himself in and asleep almost at once.
Still more hours passed, then Arcot was slowly to by Morey.
"Hey! Arcot! Wake up! ARCOT! HEY!"
Arcot's ears sent the message to his brain, but his brain to it. At last he slowly opened his eyes.
"Huh?" he said in a low, voice.
"Thank God! I didn't know you were alive or not. None of us going to bed. We you must have us there, but you sure looked dead."
"Uhuh?" came Arcot's rejoinder.
"Boy, is he sleepy!" said Wade as he into the room. "Use a wet cloth and some cold water, Morey."
A of cold water Arcot more nearly awake. He for the to an that was making itself in his midsection.
"He's all right!" laughed Wade. "His is just as healthy as ever!"
They had already prepared a meal, and Arcot was to the galley. He himself into the chair so that he eat comfortably, and then looked around at the others. "Where the are we?"
"That," Morey seriously, "was just what we wanted to ask you. We haven't the of an idea. We slept for two days, all told, and by now we're so from all the Island Universes that we can't tell one from another. We have no idea where we are.
"I've stopped the ship; we're just floating. I'm sure I don't know what happened, but I you might have an idea."
"I have an idea," said Arcot. "I'm hungry! You wait until after I've eaten, and I'll talk." He to on the food.
After eating, he to the room and that every in the place had been out of place by the they had passed through. He looked around at the and coils.
It was what had happened. Their attempt to had been successful; they had out the stars, into the space. The energy had been from the power coil, as they had expected. Then the power plant had cut in, the in two hours. Then the drive had come on again, and the ship had on into space. But with the as as they were, there was no way of which direction they had come; they were in space!
"Well, there are of we can go to," said Arcot. "We ought to be able to a one and there if we can't home again."
"Sure," Wade replied, "but I like Earth! If only we hadn't all passed out! What that, Arcot?"
Arcot shrugged. "I'm sure I don't know. My only is that the field, plus our own power field, produced a of cross-product that our brains.
"At any rate, here we are."
"We are," Morey. "We can't possibly track; what we have to do is identify our own universe. What it have that will us to it?
"Our Galaxy has two 'satellites', the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds. If we ten years photographing and studying and with the we already have, we might it. We know that will the Galaxy, but we haven't the time. Any other suggestions?"
"We came out here to visit planets, didn't we?" asked Arcot. "Here's our chance—and our only chance—of home, as as I can see. We can go to any in the neighborhood—within twenty or thirty light years—and look for a with a high of civilization.
"Then we'll give them the we have, and ask them if they've any knowledge of a with two such satellites. We just keep trying until we a which has learned through their research. I think that's the easiest, quickest, and most satisfactory method. What do you think?"
It was the choice, and they all agreed. The next was to select a galaxy.
"We can go to any one we wish," said Morey, "but we're now moving at thirty thousand miles second; it would take us a while to slow down, stop, and go in the other direction. There's a nice, big right in of us, about three days away—six light years. Any to for that?"
The looked at the point of the nebula. Out in space, a star is a hard, brilliant, point of light. But a with a mistiness; they are so away that they have any glow, such as have, but they are so vast, their so great, that across millions of light years of space they appear as with faint, edges. As the men looked out of the clear metal windows, they saw the of light on the soft black of space.
It was as good a as any, and the ship's own it; they had only to the ship with accuracy.
Setting the came first, however. There were a number of about the ship that needed and after the of from the star.
After they had a Arcot said:
"I think we'd best make all our repairs out here. That that us off our and speaker, and did a of to the projectors. I'd not land on a unarmed; the are about fifty-fifty that we'd be with open of open arms."
The work was left to Arcot and Fuller, while Morey and Wade put on and out onto the hull.
They little damage—far less than they had expected. True, the loudspeaker, the microphone, and all other of ordinary had been off clean. They didn't have to clean out the where they had been into the wall. At a temperature of ten thousand degrees, the had all away—even at seven thousand degrees, and all other normal more easily.
The projectors, which had been for the high power necessary to stop a sun in its orbit, were for normal power, and the were replaced.
After nearly four hours work, had been checked, from and points to the and gyroscopes. Stock had been taken, and they they were low on parts. If anything more happened, they would have to stop using some of the and it up for parts. Of their original supply of twenty of lead fuel, only ten of the metal were left, but lead was a common metal which they easily up on any they might visit. They also a fresh supply of water and their air there.
The ship was in as perfect condition as it had been, for every had been put in condition and the and were smoothly.
They the ship into full speed and for the ahead of them.
"We are going to look for beings," Arcot the others, "so we'll have to with them. I we all the I you—we'll need them."
The time passed with something to do. They a part of it reading the books on that Arcot had brought, and on it with each other.
By the end of the second day of the trip, Morey and Fuller, who had minds, were able to and rapidly, Fuller doing the and Morey the receiving. Wade had his time about and reading, with the result that he do neither well.
Early on the fourth day, they entered the toward which they were heading. They had stopped at about a light years and that a large local of very promised the best results, since the were closer together there, and there were many of the yellow G-0 type for which they were seeking.
They had into the as as was safe, using speed; then, at speeds, they toward the local cluster.
Arcot cut the drive light years from the nearest sun. "Well, we're where we wanted to be; now what do we do? Morey, us out a G-0 star. We your to move."
After a minutes at the telectroscope, Morey pointed to one of the pinpoints of light that in the sky. "That one looks like our best bet. It's a G-0 a little than Sol."
Morey the ship about, pointing the of the ship in the same direction as its line of flight. The had been leading, but now the ship was to its normal position.
They forward, using the space-strain drive, for a full hour at one-sixteenth power. Then Arcot cut the drive, and the of the sun was large them.
"We're going to have a job our velocity; we're traveling fast, relative to that sun," Arcot told the others. Their was so great that the sun didn't to them as they nearer. Arcot to use the drive to the ship.
Morey was with the telectroscope, although by the that it was a of to his arm out at right to his for ten under the Arcot was applying.
"This method works!" called Morey suddenly. "The Fuller System For Finding Planets has another winner! Circle the sun so that I can a look!"
Arcot was already trying to decrease their to a that would permit the of the sun to them in its and allow them to land on a planet.
"As I it," Arcot said, "we'll need of time to come to rest. What do you think, Morey?"
Morey into the calculator. "Wow! Somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred days, using all the that will be safe! At five gravities, our present of twenty-five thousand miles second to zero will take twenty-four hundred hours—one hundred days! We'll have to use the of that sun to help us."
"We'll have to use the space control," said Arcot. "If we move close to the sun by the space control, all the energy of the will be used in the space-strain coil's field, and thus prevent our falling. When we start to move away again, we will be against that gravity, which will us in stopping. But so, it will take us about three days to stop. We wouldn't using power; that sun was just too with his energy of fall!"
They started the cycles, and, as Arcot had predicted, they took a full three days of to their purpose, up nearly three of in doing so. They were by a of five for the when they stopped to eat and when they were moving in the space field. Even in sleeping, they were to the load.
The sun was their and most brake. At no time did they go more than a dozen miles from the primary, for the more the gravity, the they got.
Morey his time the ship while Arcot rested, and the system. By the end of the third day, he had very progress with his map.
He had only six planets, but he was there were others. For the of simplicity, he had and calculated their from their from the sun. He had the of the sun from direct their ship. He soon had a of the mathematically, and it to be a very close approximation.
The were more than those of Sol. The had a third again the of Mercury and was four miles from the primary. He named it Hermes. The next one, which he named Aphrodite, the Greek to the Roman Venus, was only a little larger than Venus and was some eight miles from its primary—seventy-five miles from the sun.
The next, which Morey called Terra, was very much like Earth. At a of a hundred and twenty-four miles from the sun, it must have almost the same amount of that Earth does, for this sun was than Sol.
Terra was eight thousand two hundred miles in diameter, with a clear and a which clouds in the atmosphere. Morey had every to that it might be inhabited, but he had no proof his were to the of the sun.
The of the proved to be of little interest. In the place where, according to Bode's Law, another planet, to Mars, should have been, there was only a of asteroids. Beyond this was still another belt. And on the other of the was the fourth planet, a fifty-thousand-mile-in-diameter methane-ammonia which Morey named Zeus in of Jupiter.
He had up a of others on his plates, but he had not been able to tell anything about them as yet. In any case, the Aphrodite and Terra were by the most interesting.
"I think we the right to come into this system," said Arcot, looking at Morey's of the wide of asteroids. They had come into the group at right to the plane of the ecliptic, which had allowed them to miss belts.
They started moving toward the Terra, their in less than three hours.
The them was brightly, for they had approached it from the side. Below them, they see wide, green and mountains, and in a great in one of the was a of blue.
The air of the about them as they down, and the in the to a of sound. Morey the volume.
The little passed them as they on, seventy-five miles above the surface of the planet. When they had entered the atmosphere, they had the of looking on a vast, bowl rested on a vast, table of velvet. But as they and the and bluer, they the of "flopping" of the scene. The bowl to turn itself out, and they were looking at its surface.
They over a range, and a plain spread out them. Here and there, in the distance, they see by strata.
Arcot the ship around, and they saw the about them as their of "down" with the of the turn. They nearly weightless, for they were again in a high arc.
Arcot was toward the they had passed over. He the ship again, and the to to meet them.
"I'm for that lake," Arcot explained. "It deserted, and there are some we want to do. I haven't had any for the past two weeks, for under high gravity. I want to do some swimming, and we need to some water for drink; we need to the in case of emergencies. If the oxygen, fine; if it doesn't, we can it out of the water by electrolysis.
"But I that air is good to breathe, I've been wanting a swim and a sun for a long time!"
