"I was the one who got lucky," Gefty said. "Anyway, where Maulbow came
from, it's the janandra's kind that gives the orders. And the thing is,
Maulbow liked it that way. He didn't want it to be different. When the
light hit us, it killed the janandra on the outside of the ship. Maulbow
felt it happen and it cracked him up. He wanted to kill us for it. But
since he was helpless, he killed himself. He didn't want to be
healed--not by us. At least, that's what it looks like."
He shrugged, checked his watch, climbed out of the chair. "Well," he
said, "the ten minutes I gave the _Queen_ to turn the power back on are
up. 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 cleared
his throat, went on, "Our true ship position, that is--" He stopped,
realizing he was talking too much, almost babbling, in an attempt to
take some of the tension out of the moment. The next few seconds might
not tell them where they were, but it would show whether they had been
carried beyond the regions of space charted by Federation instruments.
Which would mean the difference between having a chance--whether a good
chance or a bad one--of getting home eventually, and the alternative of
being hopelessly lost.
There had been nothing recognizably familiar about the brilliantly dense
star patterns in the viewscreens, but he gave no further thought to
that. Unless the ship's exact position was known or one was on an
established route, it was a waste of time looking for landmarks in a
sizable cluster.
He turned on the basic star chart. Within the locator plate the green
pinpoint of light reappeared, red-ringed and suspended now against the
three-dimensional immensities of the Milky Way. It stayed still a
moment, began a smooth drift towards Galactic East. Gefty let his breath
out carefully. He sensed Kerim's eyes on him but kept his gaze fixed on
the locator plate.
The green dot slowed, came to a stop. Gefty's finger tapped the same
button four times. The big chart flicked out of existence, and in the
plate three regional star maps appeared and vanished in quick succession
behind it. The fourth map stayed. For a few seconds, the red-circled
green spark was not visible here. Then it showed at the eastern margin
of the map, came gliding forwards and to the left, slowed again and
held 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 dead
center point in the locator plate and stopped.
Gefty slumped a little. He rubbed his hands slowly down his face and
muttered 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 tried
to find out which way in space we were headed. The direction indicators
over there seemed to show we were trying to go everywhere at once. You
remember Maulbow's control unit wasn't working right, needed
adjustments. Well, all those little impulses must have pretty well
canceled out because we weren't taken really far. In the last hour and a
half we've covered roughly the distance the _Queen_ could have gone on
her own in, say, thirty days."
"Then where ..."
"Home," Gefty said simply. "It's ridiculous! Other side of the Hub from
where we started." He nodded at the plate. "Eastern Hub Quadrant.
Section Six Eight. The G2 behind the green dot--that's the Evalee
system. We could be putting down at Evalee Interstellar three hours from
now if we wanted to."