"What more can we do?"
"We can start over again."
"Is that an order?" asked Hatch.
Manning shook his head almost imperceptibly. Wilson caught the faint
objection and said, "Wait a moment. Toby, what have you got in mind?"
"If we start over again," Manning said soberly, "I'll have to
reconstruct the grid. Because by the time we've covered the grid,
they'll have had time to pass outside of the present realm."
Wilson thought this over. "Why," he asked generally, "don't we start on
the outside and close in?"
Manning answered, "Because in starting on the inside we have the best
mathematical chance of finding them. By starting on the outside,
we must cover a vast cylinder, element by element, working in the
direction opposite to theirs. No, that's not the right way to do it,
Commodore."
"All right. Reconstruct your new grid, Toby. Hugh, get your gang
together and compute the center line of the pattern within a half-inch.
Morganstern, you've got a good crew of advanced techs. Turn 'em all
over to Allison. Allison, pack enough men aboard that cranky crate of
yours so that any part that blows can be replaced within ten seconds.
I want uninterrupted operation, even though the thing only hands us
spurious responses.
"Hatch, put half of your gang in with the random search team. No use
using all of you to run down gas clouds and meteorites and places where
there should be something the size of a planet but isn't. Yes, we'll
start all over. And this time, Hugh, give us fifty per cent overlap,
and get busy with Toby to compute the new grid on that basis. Can we do
it?"
They looked at him. Some wearily, who saw him more weary than they.
Some angrily, but Wilson was beyond honest anger himself. Some
anxiously, who knew that Ted Wilson had lost more out in that black
nothingness than a reputation, or a mark on his record. Some looked at
him willingly. They were all with him, tired, angry, expectant, but all
willing.