behealed--not by us. At least, that's what it looks like."
He shrugged, checked his watch, climbed out of the chair. "Well," hesaid, "the ten minutes I gave the _Queen_ to turn the power back on areup. Looks like the old girl couldn't do it. So I'll--"
The indirect lighting system in the instrument room went on silently.The emergency light flickered and went out. Gefty's head came around.
Kerim was staring past him at the screens, her face radiant.
"Oh, Gefty!" she cried softly. "Oh, Gefty! Our stars!"
* * * * *
"Green dot here is us," Gefty explained, somewhat hoarsely. He clearedhis throat, went on, "Our true ship position, that is--" He stopped,realizing he was talking too much, almost babbling, in an attempt totake some of the tension out of the moment. The next few seconds mightnot tell them where they were, but it would show whether they had beencarried beyond the regions of space charted by Federation instruments.Which would mean the difference between having a chance--whether a goodchance or a bad one--of getting home eventually, and the alternative ofbeing hopelessly lost.
There had been nothing recognizably familiar about the brilliantly densestar patterns in the viewscreens, but he gave no further thought tothat. Unless the ship's exact position was known or one was on anestablished route, it was a waste of time looking for landmarks in asizable cluster.
He turned on the basic star chart. Within the locator plate the greenpinpoint of light reappeared, red-ringed and suspended now against thethree-dimensional immensities of the Milky Way. It stayed still amoment, began a smooth drift towards Galactic East. Gefty let his breathout carefully. He sensed Kerim's eyes on him but kept his gaze fixed onthe locator plate.
The green dot slowed, came to a stop. Gefty's finger tapped the samebutton four times. The big chart flicked out of existence, and in theplate three regional star maps appeared and vanished in quick successionbehind it. The fourth map stayed. For a few seconds, the red-circledgreen spark was not visible here. Then it showed at the eastern marginof the map, came gliding forwards and to the left, slowed again andheld steady. Now the star map began to glide through the locator plate,carrying the fixed green dot with it. It brought the dot up to deadcenter point in the locator plate and stopped.
Gefty slumped a little. He rubbed his hands slowly down his face andmuttered a few words. Then he shook his head.
"Gefty," Kerim whispered, "what is it? Where are we?"
Gefty looked at her.
"After we got hauled into that time current," he said hoarsely, "I triedto find out which way in space we were headed. The direction indicatorsover there seemed to show we were trying to go everywhere at once. Youremember Maulbow's control unit wasn't working right, neededadjustments. Well, all those little impulses must have pretty wellcanceled out because we weren't taken really far. In the last hour and ahalf we've covered roughly the distance the _Queen_ could have gone onher own in, say, thirty days."
"Then where ..."
"Home," Gefty said simply. "It's ridiculous! Other side of the Hub fromwhere we started." He nodded at the plate. "Eastern Hub Quadrant.Section Six Eight. The G2 behind the green dot--that's the Evaleesystem. We could be putting down at Evalee Interstellar three hours fromnow if we wanted to."
Kerim was laughing and crying together. "Oh, Gefty! I knew you would ..."
"A fat lot I had to do with it!" Gefty leaned forward suddenly, switchedon the transmitter. "And now let's pick up a live newscast. There'ssomething else I ..."
His voice trailed off. The transmitter screen lit up with a blurredjumble of print, colors, a muttering of voices, music and noises. Geftytwisted a dial. The screen cleared, showed a newscast headline sheet.Gefty blinked at it, glanced sideways at Kerim, grimaced.
"The something else," he said, his voice a little strained, "wassomething I was also worried about. Looks like I was more or lessright."
"Why, what's wrong?"
"Nothing really bad," Gefty assured her. He added, "I think. But take alook at the Federation dateline."
Kerim peered at the screen, frowned. "But ..."
"Uh-huh."
"Why, that ... that's almost ..."
"That," Gefty said, "or rather _this_ is the day after we started outfrom the Hub, headed roughly Galactic west. Three weeks ago. We'd bejust past Miam." He knuckled his chin. "Interesting thought, isn't it?"
Kerim was silent for long seconds. "Then they ... or we ..."
"Oh, they're us, all right," Gefty said. "They'd have to be, wouldn'tthey?"
"I suppose so. It seems a little confusing. But I was thinking. If yousend them a transmitter call ..."
Gefty shook his head. "The _Queen's_ transmitter isn't too hot, but itmight push a call as far as Evalee. Then we could arrange for a Com-Weblink-up there, and in another ten minutes or so ... but I don't thinkwe'd better."
"Why not?" Kerim demanded.
"Because we got through it all safely, so we're going to get through itsafely. But if we receive that message now and never go on to Maulbow'smoon ... you see? There's no way of knowing just what would happen."
Kerim looked hesitant, frowned. "I suppose you're right," she agreedreluctantly at last. "So Mr. Maulbow will have to stay dead now. Andthat janandra." After a moment she added pensively, "Of course, theyweren't really very nice--"
Gefty shivered. One of the things he'd learned from Maulbow's ravingswas the real reason he and Kerim had been taken along on the trip. Hedidn't feel like telling Kerim about it just yet, but it had been solelybecause of Maulbow's concern for his master's creature comforts. Thejanandra could go for a long time without food, but after fasting forseveral years on the moon, a couple of snacks on the homeward run wouldhave been highly welcome.
And the janandra was a gourmet. It much preferred, as Maulbow well knew,to have its snacks still wriggling-fresh as it started them down itsgullet.
"No," Gefty said, "I couldn't call either of them really nice."
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Analog_ September 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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