Chapter IX

As soon as Gant Nerley's face disappeared from the viewpanel, Dusty turned to face Barbara. She was standing far to one side, out of range of the viewpanel, and stifling a giggle. She let it bubble through her fingers as soon as Dusty caught her eye.

"Funny as hell," he said. "Me--I'm hysterical."

Barbara sobered immediately. "Honest, Dusty. I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing with you."

"Why?" he demanded sharply.

"Because you really fooled that bird. Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol. Yes, I can navigate a ship."

"I'm going to. Want out?"

"I wouldn't miss this for the world. Glad we've got the whole galaxy for you to make mistakes in."

"Stop making fun," he snapped. "Let's try and think of something sensible, Barb. Too bad we haven't time to take a run back to the city."

"What good would that do?"

"Well, you could show 'em that bauble you're wearing and I could try the menslator out on 'em, and maybe between us we could convince 'em that there's something more in this tale of mine than wind."

"That's an idea, but it's out."

"I know. But--"

"Dusty, you'll have to carry it to Gant Nerley yourself."

"Carry what?"

Barbara shook her head impatiently. "Think!" she cried. "Dusty, this license might be rescinded if we can show that Sol has evolved above the minimum level of acceptability."

"Yes?"

"Then go in there with your head up and let 'em know how we're built."

Dusty waved at the field of instruments on the control position. "Open my yap and let 'em know how ignorant we are? We should have a couple of scientists along."

Barbara shook her head. "No," she said slowly. "One of the marks of a real scientist is that he usually considers that he knows a lot less than he does. You're better off. You don't know enough to confuse yourself. Besides, Dusty, you're an actor."

"Um--er--Jeeks! Hang on a mo' will you? I've an idea."

Dusty loped down the stairs to his car and opened the compartment behind the front seat. It was his emergency kit; it held his Dusty Britton uniform, the complete regalia of The Space Patrol complete with Dusty Britton 'Blaster' concealed against the days when Dusty found himself trapped in public and could not appear out of character.

He changed in the car and went back to the control room.

Barbara took one look at him and nodded slowly. "You're a gaudy sight," she said. "But maybe that's what it takes."

Dusty slapped the 'Blaster' at his hip. "I look authentic enough except for this hunk of hardware," he said. "Hell, it isn't even as useful as a dress sword."

"Your revolver? Oh--still on my living room floor."

Dusty unbelted the holster. "I shouldn't have to go armed everywhere, should I?"

"I suppose not."

"All right, then. How do I look?"

* * * * *

Barbara smiled thinly, "Dusty, no one on earth would ever accuse you of being anything but a Hollywood actor in that get-up. But a man from halfway across the Galaxy itself might not know about these things. You might be an Admiral of the Swiss Navy. You're impressive-looking. Just don't get pompous."

"Just you remember that I'm Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol and don't giggle when I start dishing it out."

"I won't. After all, I call myself an actress, you know." She looked nervously at the viewpanel.

"Are you all right?" he demanded.

"Yes. I'm nervous but I'll be all right."

Dusty went over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Take a deep breath," he commanded. She did. "Now let it out slowly." She did that, too. "Now," he said softly, slipping an arm around her and leading her to the stairway, "You come down below and relax. Pull yourself together, Barb. We'll make it--somehow."

"Got any ideas?"

"Not yet. But--"

Above, the voice of Gant Nerley came back. Dusty raced aloft and apologized for having been absent. Gant was nodding with admiration at something below the level of the view panel, probably something on the desk.

Gant looked up after a moment and said, "Dusty Britton, this is really a remarkable route. Truly fantastic. So well hidden, and yet right within our grasp all of these centuries! Well, you shall see, Dusty. And doubtless you will agree."

"Okay," said Dusty, "let's get going."

"Not so fast, young man. I'm waiting for the direction-finding stations to report so that I can determine where along this prospected route you lie."

"We're about two-thirds of the way out from the center, I believe," offered Dusty.

"That's a rather inaccurate generality. You know where you are and we know where we are, but we must know where we are with respect to one another before we can make contact. Now--" Gant's voice stopped suddenly as something caught his eye above the lens of the viewpanel, and he looked over Dusty's head, apparently, so intently that Dusty himself turned to see what Gant was staring at. He saw only instruments, and realized that Gant was looking at another panel-section above the one that communicated with Dusty's panel.

"Um," said Gant. "You would appear to lie in what we call 'Sector G-18, Co-ordinate 307, Galactic Angle 215.86-plus degrees, South altitude-angle 1.017-minus degrees, Co-frame 9654.' Now, Dusty, in your terms, where lies the Galactic Center?"

Dusty laughed. The tone of his laugh was half bitter and half a note of self-disparagement. "Sorry, Gant. We frame our reference from Terra, naturally."

Dusty breathed a sigh of relief at having boned up on enough science to play his part convincingly.

"I do not quite understand what you mean," returned Gant.

"We compute stellar positions in latitude from the angle above or below the equator of Terra, which we call 'Declination' and in longitude by their rise as the planet rotates, which we call 'Right Ascension'. Therefore the so-called 'Celestial equator' is a projection of the Earth's equator upon the sky, and the colures pass from celestial pole to celestial pole, which are projections of Terra's axis. Now, since the Earth's equator is tilted with respect to the Earth's orbit, and the Earth's orbit is tilted with respect to the Galactic Equator, I'll be darned if I know how to explain in mutual terms. Oh, we assume that the galactic center is in a region of the sky we call 'Sagittarius' but that is meaningless."

"I agree. Wait a moment."

* * * * *

Gant turned from the window in Dusty's viewpanel and walked away from it by several yards. He worked over a complicated keyboard for some minutes and then returned.

"Dusty," he said, "I think we can handle this as follows. To your left hand near the top of the control board you will find a key-lever marked Phanobeacon. Pull it towards you."

Dusty looked, found the key, and pulled. A bright spot of light appeared on the view panel, high in the left hand corner. "That is the true position of Marandis," said Gant Nerley. "If you tried to make it at transgalactic speeds you'd plough into about forty stars and hit about nineteen gas-clouds. You'd either blow up, or spend the rest of your life running at safe velocities. However, if you take off and steer your spacecraft so as to put that beacon spot on the calibration lines G-705, F-318, you should find the next rift-beacon somewhere near to the crosshairs of the viewpanel. Got it?"

"I think so."

"Good. Now, for take-off instructions. Ready?"

"Ready."

Gant Nerley began a running patter of instructions. Those favored few who have ever seen the control room of a spacecraft can possibly grasp the implications of the problem. One does not step into the pilot's chair of a complex device such as a galactic cruiser, push a pedal and then steer any more than a Wall Street Accountant could step into the cockpit of a six-engine airliner and take off, just like that. There was the pre-flight checkoff, probably performed by the competent Marandanian Pilot in a matter of minutes, and quite possibly done with an automatic reflex action which would permit the accomplished pilot to daydream about the girl on the next planet meanwhile; only the appearance of the wrong pilot-lamp response would bring him out of his automatic response with an abrupt recognition of something awry.

* * * * *

But Dusty was not a pilot, and certainly not a pilot of a Marandanian Spacecraft. So the pre-flight checkoff took almost an hour. Nearly ninety-nine percent of the time Dusty was following Gant Nerley's instructions blindly: Is the pilot lamp registering power source showing red or green? Is the spacelock indicator showing closed? Turn the atmosphere control to Internal. Set the autogravity corrector to Controlled. Co-stator circuits to Regulated; antimagnetic response dial to zero; space-coordinate servo control to Stellar Display. Planetary Drive to Automatic Threshold; match the Gravitic Constant to the Power Delivery. Set the Master Control to Pre-flight Warm-up.

"Now," said Gant Nerley, "take it slow and easy. Take the 'Tee' bar gently. Find the thumb-buttons and press them both evenly; spread your knees against the paddles under the control panel slowly and press the Force pedal with your right foot. Tell me, what is your trans-atmospheric velocity?"

"It says 416."

"Too high. Press the Compensator pedal with your left foot until the TAV meter reads 312."

"Now."

"Hold it that way until the Matter Per Cubic Meter indicator drops below the red line."

"The TAV meter is dropping below 312."

"Good. Let up on the Compensator pedal and depress the Force pedal more. Keep the TAV meter at 312."

"The Matter Per Cubic Meter indicator is below the red line, Gant."

"Free the Compensator pedal. Push the Force pedal all the way home and kick it to the right. Now read the Trans-atmospheric velocity meter."

"Dropping rapidly."

"Good. And the MCPM?"

"Dropping rapidly."

"Excellent. Spread the knee-paddles wide and lock them. Have you a reading yet on the Space Velocity Meter?"

"Just getting off the peg."

"Um--it is a little early. But that's all right. It will arrive in due time. Keep an eye on the Foreign Body Indicator, Dusty. Any reading?"

"No."

"Good. Don't touch the 'Tee' bar, Dusty. That's the steering mechanism and it is in neutral. Is there any indication on the viewpanel yet?"

"Not yet."

"Haven't enough velocity yet," said Gant. "But when it appears, it will look like a star map. Now, the central cross-hair is the point of aim of your spacecraft. If the star you want lies, say, to the upper left, move the 'Tee' bar forward and to your left. That will swing the ship in that direction and you can line up the drive with the target. Also, since angular position is important when moving in three free dimensions, twisting the crossbar of the 'Tee' will cause the ship to rotate on its axis. The map will turn in the direction, apparently, but it is really the ship turning. That is--"

"I'm beginning to get a presentation now," said Dusty.

"Good. Dim and reddish, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Fine. Now get this straight and clear: The phanobeacon is the control beacon for direction of angular curve. In other words, it takes three points to define the orientation of a plane in space. These three points are you, the star-beacon or course-marker which you will find directly, and the main terminal-beacon which is the phanobeacon. You must drive your ship in the proper plane when making a curve or making any turn. Follow?"

"Yes," replied Dusty, trying to think it out. He was far from certain about all this, wondering why it was all necessary. He went over the instructions in his mind, made no more sense out of it than the first time, and then decided to accept it without trying to figure out the reasons. After all, Gant Nerley and his folks ought to know what they were doing.

"Now," said Gant, after a moment, "In order to orient yourself, you must line up the Phanobeacon on the point of aim. Take the 'Tee' bar firmly, one hand on either side of the axle. Find the thumb-buttons on the handle. Press them all the way in and lock them home with a slight sidewise pressure towards the center. Got that? Now, lift the 'Tee' bar straight up until it is high enough to manipulate with ease. Be careful, don't move it sidewise!"

* * * * *

The last admonition was wasted. Dusty lifted the 'Tee' bar gingerly and not too evenly. The stars on the viewpanel danced dizzily, swiveled, and flowed across the plate. The bright phanobeacon spot moved from the plate along the bottom, danced back in view on a brief curve, and left again along a flat slant. The 'Tee' bar clicked into place and the stars stopped dancing with a snap. Dusty moved the 'Tee' bar gently and the stars flowed upward until the phanobeacon re-appeared.

"Got it," he said shakily. He moved the 'Tee' bar very gently until the phanobeacon was centered on the screen. Or, rather, almost centered. It moved in jerky little circles like the sights of a rifle in the hands of a tyro.

"Fine. You're doing well with strange equipment. Now, on the panel you will find a switch marked 'Co-ordinates.' It will be set on 'Rectangular' and you must flip it to 'Polar'."

The switch changed the cross-hair pattern of the viewpanel from the horizontal and vertical calibrations to a circular pattern with only the main center hairlines remaining. Angle-lines radiated out from the center, crossing the circles.

"Now, Dusty, inspect the radius-line marked G-705. All the way around. Do you see a winking star?"

"No."

"Um. I was hoping we could do it the easy way. The sealed course-plan is not too clear, for which I don't blame Transgalactic. All right. We'll have to do it the hard way. Move the phanobeacon down until it is almost on the lower edge of the viewpanel. Now flip the 'Co-ordinates' switch to the left, leaving it in the bottom position marked 'Polar.' You'll find that the toggle has an 'H' type pattern of motion, laid flat-wise."

The polar co-ordinates disappeared completely from the center of the viewpanel and centered around the phanobeacon spot. They made larger and larger arcs as the circles approached the top of the panel.

"Now this is going to be tricky. You must twist the 'Tee' bar slowly and let the ship rotate, but you must also move it so that the phanobeacon stays near its present off-center position. But before you do this, let me explain what you are actually doing in space. Picture a needle-shaped spacecraft with a line along the axis running out before the ship, marking the line of drive, or direction. At some distance from the line lies a spot which denotes the phanobeacon. Somewhere out beyond, there is another spot that must be sighted within the confines of an angle not greater than the angle made between the point of aim, or line of drive, and the imaginary line running from the nose of the ship to the phanobeacon. So you must cause the ship to rotate on a false axis, making the line of flight describe a cone of revolution with the phanobeacon on the axis of the cone. Now, go ahead and try."

"Okay." Dusty moved the 'Tee' bar and the stars moved in jaggledy little scallops along a greater arc. The center of the beacon held the polar lines, but they moved with the stars and with the beacon. It made Dusty dizzy and his eyes began to ache. "What am I looking for?" he asked plaintively.

"Look along the outer circles for a winking st--"

"Got it!"

"Good. Turn the 'Tee' bar to neutral," said Gant. "Return the 'Co-ordinate' switch back to the center of the 'H' pattern. Center the stellar course beacon on the point of aim."

The winking star flashed at Dusty like a flag. It danced crazily as he manipulated the 'Tee' bar with all of the thumb-handedness of the rookie pilot on his first attempt at the controls. There was so much to do, so many things to handle, so many motions to make. Dusty gripped the 'Tee' bar tightly, too tightly. When he let go with one hand to flip a switch or to make an adjustment, the grip of his other hand moved the bar. It became sweaty and sticky, then it became slippery and he gripped it even tighter, which made it worse because his fine control left him as he strove to hold the handles tighter and tighter.

In a jagged line like the trail of a rising smoke, the winking star proceeded to the center of the viewpanel. There it hung, wabbling around in tiny circles and occasionally making a brief jerky dart to one side or the other. Dusty mopped his face and the beacon star jumped; he grabbed the handle again and the star leaped across the center and wabbled on the other side of zero-zero.

"Got it," he said in a quavering voice.

"Now rotate the ship until the phanobeacon is on the vertical hairline. Then flip the switch to 'Rectangular' again."

The stars scalloped around in the viewpanel until the phanobeacon was on the vertical line. The field leaped a bit as Dusty found the 'Co-ordinates' switch and returned the calibration-presentation to the horizontal and vertical hairlines.

"Now?" he asked.

"You have a bit of time. Be certain that the star-marker lies firm and true. Be careful!"

Dusty gripped the handles and tried to steady his shaking hands. Then, because he had no more complexity of motions to make, he relaxed a bit. The dancing star-field slowed its mad vibration, which calmed Dusty's jumping nerves still more.

He leaned back in the pilot's chair slowly, his grip on the 'Tee' bar lightening and becoming more true. He looked at the beacon star and knew what Chat, Bren, and Scyth were working toward.

* * * * *

It lay there on the center of his panel like a winking flashlight. Lost in the star-field, which showed a myriad of points, some dim cloudy stuff, and a band of milky white, the beacon would have been nothing without that steady wink ... wink ... wink. He, himself, was lost. He had not the foggiest notion of where he was, excepting that Mother Terra must be far behind. Sol, a smallish, yellowish, completely average dwarf would show nothing to call attention to itself from the distance of a few light-years. Yes, somewhere back behind him lay Sol and his planets. But the winking beacon on Dusty's viewpanel was like a banner waved from a distant shore.

No man is alone so long as a lighthouse flashes its message of safety, or warns against danger.

Dusty took a deep breath. "Barb!" he called.

She came up the ladder. "Call me?"

"How's Scyth?" he asked.

"He's doing all right. How're you doing?"

Dusty nodded boyishly. "Look, Maw I'm flyin'," he told her with a chuckle. "Martin Gramer should see me now. This is simple like a duck's ear, and I--"

Barbara screamed and Dusty whipped his head back to look along the direction of her horrified eyes. To the viewpanel.

One of the stars, lost in the glitter of the distant background had detached itself from the immobile sky. It was moving, forward, and its glow was brightening. It came hurtling towards them like a white hot cannonball. One second it was no more than any other star, distant, aloof, and cold. Then it had exploded into a disc that expanded like a released puff of gas. It came toward them like a ball of fire hurled into their faces.

Dusty yelped and twisted on the 'Tee' bar and the stars rolled dizzily across the plate--but not until the white hot monster had flipped past in a quick wave of heat and a final flare of light which made a small section in the back of Dusty's mind recall the effect of having a foil-filled flashbulb fired during a still photography session.

Shaking, Dusty's grip on the 'Tee' bar tightened and he moved the lever in tight little jerks until the stars returned to the proper positions and the Phanobeacon was properly centered.

Gant's face showed concern. "What happened, Dusty?"

Dusty told the Marandanian, and Gant smiled knowingly. "Don't worry about it. It will happen again and again, and maybe worse. But so long as you keep the course beacon centered properly, you will pass by--and not through--those interfering stars. Now, as soon as your beacon star shows a disc, steer up to keep the beacon centered on Line H-001. Once you pass the beacon, look for another beacon on Line F-312 and bring the point-of-drive to center on the new one. Follow?"

Dusty nodded at Gant's image on the screen along the bottom of the viewpanel. Another star detached itself from the backdrop of stars and hurled itself into Dusty's teeth. The actor flinched but held his drive. The star passed in a bright flash and a quick wave of heat and was gone. Dusty licked dry lips and forced the grip of his hands to relax. Far to one side another star passed in a majestic sweep, too distant to bring them either heat or more light than the ones called 'fixed' on the viewpanel.

Dusty eyed the star-beacon suspiciously. Was it showing a disc yet? And how much time did he have to shift the drive once the disc became certain? Dusty felt a cold wave wriggle down his spine and he knew that cold beads of sweat were beginning to ooze out of his face; he was remembering the staggering speed with which the first star had come leaping at him.

* * * * *

Another star passed him in its characteristic wave of light and heat, and Dusty realized that what looked dangerously close on the viewpanel was in reality quite distant. It meant that so long as his ship was pointed into a clear space, there would be no danger of running into a star no matter how precarious it looked.

But the cold sweat came because the beacon star lay winking at him dead in the intersection of the crosshairs that marked the drive.

Disc? Did it show a disc? Does Sirius show more of a disc than Polaris?

Dusty's hands pulled the 'Tee' bar slightly to move the winking eye ever so subtly upward. That way he would not be aiming his spacecraft dead into the searing hot maw of a variable star. He took a shaky breath and relaxed.

Gant Nerley shook his head. "I see what you are doing, Dusty, and you must not. You'll make a wide curve and get off the beam. Or worse, you'll hit a star lying close to the course. You have no idea of how wide you'll run. Center it up, Dusty, and keep a close watch, for it will become a disc. You'll have time. Relax."

Reluctantly Dusty returned the 'Tee' bar to the central position, and the star winked through the crosshairs at him, itself no larger in diameter than the width of one line. It was not obscured by the lines because of the construction of the panel, a design that Dusty could not quite understand. Dark lines should have hidden the stars behind them, but on this gadget they did not. He looked closer and found that the stars themselves lay on top of the lines rather than under them, and he wondered how they managed that stunt. It was, of course, a matter of design. Dusty's experience had been with small telescopes, but this device was not an optical device, so the simple laws of optics did not obtain. As he watched, the winking star became a winking disc and Dusty's nerves twitched.

When had the change started? Dusty realized that he had been half-hypnotized by the wink ... wink ... wink that meant both safety and ultimate danger. The disc was expanding rapidly, and as Dusty tried to move the disc to Line H-001, the edge of the winking beacon expanded faster than the point of aim moved. He wrenched the 'Tee' bar hard and saw the crosshairs move sluggishly below the exploding circle. Then the beacon flashed past in a wave of heat far greater than any of the other stars, and he was blinded by the light for a second or more. But as the blindness died, there on Line F-312 there was a distant wink ... wink ... wink.