Out Around Rigel | Page 3

I called something or other to her. Then the door clanged shut. Seated before the control board at the front of the room, Garth held the switch for the two projectors.
"Both turned up," he yelled over the roar of the generators. His hands swung over and the noise died down, but nothing else seemed to have happened. I turned back again to look out the little window fixed in the door.
* * * * *
Down far below, I could see for a moment the city of Nardos with its great white bridge, and a spot that might be Kelvar. Then there was only the ocean, sparkling in the Earth-light, growing smaller, smaller. And then we had shot out of the atmosphere into the glare of the sun and a thousand stars.
On and up we went, until the moon was a crescent with stars around it. Then Garth threw the power forward.
"Might as well turn in," he told me. "There'll be nothing interesting until we get out of the solar system and I can put on real speed. I'll take the first trick."
"How long watches shall we stand?"
"Eighteen hours ought to match the way we have been living. If you have another preference--"
"No, that will be all right. And I suppose I might as well get in some sleep now."
I was not really sleepy, but only dazed a little by the adventure. I fixed some things on the floor by one of the windows and lay down, switching out the light. Through a top window the sunlight slanted down to fall around Garth, at his instrument board, in a bright glory. From my window I could see the Earth and the gleaming stars.
The Earth was smaller than I had ever seen it before. It seemed to be moving backward a little[TN-2], and even more, to be changing phase. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, sleepily, the bright area was perceptibly smaller. If I could stay awake long enough, there would be only a crescent again. If I could stay awake--But I could not....
* * * * *
Only the rattling of dishes as Garth prepared breakfast brought me back to consciousness. I got to my feet sheepishly.
"How long have I slept?"
"Twenty hours straight. You looked as if you might have gone on forever. It's the lack of disturbance to indicate time. I got in a little myself, once we were out of the solar system."
A sandwich in one hand, I wandered over the vessel. It was reassuringly solid and concrete. And yet there was something lacking.
"Garth," I asked, "what's become of the sun?"
"I thought you'd want to know that." He led me to the rear telescope.
"But I don't see anything."
"You haven't caught on yet. See that bright yellowish star on the edge of the constellation Scorpio. That's it."
Involuntarily, I gasped. "Then--how far away are we?"
"I put on full acceleration fifteen hours ago, when we passed Neptune, and we have covered thirty billion miles--three hundred times as far as from the moon to the sun, but only one half of one per cent of a light-year."
I was speechless, and Garth led me back to the control board. He pointed out the acceleration control, now turned up to its last notch forward; he also showed me the dials which were used to change our direction.
"Just keep that star on the cross hairs. It's Pi Orionis, a little out of our course, but a good target since it is only twenty-five light-years away. Half the light is deflected on this screen, with a delicate photo-electric cell at its center. The instant the light of the star slips off it, a relay is started which lights a red lamp here, and in a minute sounds a warning bell. That indicator over there shows our approach to any body. It works by the interaction of the object's gravitational field with that of my projector, and we can spot anything sizable an hour away. Sure you've got everything?"
* * * * *
It all seemed clear. Then I noticed at the top three clock-like dials; one to read days, another to record the speeds of light, and the third to mark light-years traveled.
"These can't really work?" I said. "We have no way to check our speed with outer space."
"Not directly. This is geared with clockwork to represent an estimate based on the acceleration. If your theory is right, then the dials are all wrong."
"And how long do you expect to go ahead without knowing the truth?"
"Until we ought to be at Pi Orionis. At two weeks and twenty-five light-years by the dials, if we aren't there we'll start back. By your figuring, we shouldn't be yet one light-year on the way. Anything more?"
"No, I think I can manage it."
"Wake me if anything's wrong. And look