Morey thought he was the first to waken when, seven hours later, he
dressed and dove lightly, noiselessly, out into the library. Suddenly,
he noticed that the telectroscope was in operation--he heard the low hum
of its smoothly working director motors.
He turned and headed back toward the observatory. Arcot was busy with
the telectroscope.
"What's up, Arcot?" he demanded.
Arcot looked up at him and dusted off his hands. "I've just been
gimmicking up the telectroscope. We're going around this dead dwarf once
every three milliseconds, which makes it awfully hard to see the stars
around us. So I put in a cutoff which will shut the telectroscope off
most of the time; it only looks at the sky once every three
milliseconds. As a result, we can get a picture of what's going on
around us very easily. It won't be a steady picture, but since we're
getting a still picture three hundred times a second, it will be better
than any moving picture film ever projected as far as accuracy is
concerned.
"I did it because I want to take a look at that bright streak in the
sky. I think it'll be the means to our salvation--if there is any."
Morey nodded. "I see what you mean; if that's another white dwarf--which
it most likely is--we can use it to escape. I think I see what you're
driving at."
"If it doesn't work," Arcot said coolly, "we can profit by the example
of the people we left back there. Suicide is preferable to dying of
cold."