Night. Benton Allan beckoned Winthrop to his side.
"You're familiar with Einstein's math, George. What do you think of
this?"
Winthrop studied the recorded results with mounting trepidation.
"Similar processes. The end result will probably be E equals MC^{2}!"
"Which explains the reactor and the fission bomb. We've cracked their
math, George!"
Lizio came in at a half-run then, his eyes excited, proud with
discovery.
"Gentlemen," he said quickly, "we could duplicate everything electronic
if the ship soared away this minute! I guess we all thought we'd come
across a product of a vastly more intelligent race. But their science
is not superior to ours except in application. It found anti-gravity,
for one thing!"
He nodded, then went on quickly. "Something, however, puzzles us.
There's either a draftsman's error, or a technician's error. One
circuit leading forward should be connected to a junction box on
the main power dynamo. Instead, it's connected to one of the gyro
assemblies. Its function was undoubtedly intended to transmit a pulse
to activate some mechanism forward, probably to arouse the crew. It
probably acted on the anti-gravity apparatus instead, slowing the ship
practically to a standstill and letting it drift in with the crew
unawakened.
"The circuit's forward connections are in the bulkhead instrument
which is in part an autopilot/computer. We found a punched tape which
we believe spelled _Destination: Earth_, and should also have led to
activation of the awakening apparatus.
"Allan can work on the related math. I've identified it with the
schematics. Then perhaps we'll be convinced that we must correct the
wiring and arouse the crew."
General Hill snapped from the doorway, "Lizio, we can't be hasty.
We must not only correlate everything you electronics men find and
everything the computers reveal, but re-check our findings ten times
over. Incidentally, copies of the book and details of our findings have
been flown to the Bureau of Standards. They're busy on it, too.
"If the crew is dead, delay won't matter. If they've been in suspended
animation across eight plus light years, delay shouldn't matter
either--to them or to us! We can't try to be rescuers and wind up
murderers by mistake!"
Three hours later Benton Allan came again from the computers.
"It's undoubtedly anti-gravity," he announced. "I've done considerable
work on magnetic lines of force and theoretical work on possible
creation of force fields for use as meteor screens. This math weaves in
and out of mine like a pulse across a synchroscope. I'd been incredibly
close to anti-gravity myself! That one blasted equation! Amazing!
"Lizio has been working with others on the autopilot computer. They
suspected it was oriented off the galactic hub and the math verifies
it. Doctor Englander from Palomar plotted courses to various star
systems with the hub as reference point, and Lizio had the instrument
punching tape from Englander's data.
"The unit not only plots courses to any star system in the galaxy,
but apparently to any planet of any system! How could the memory bank
have been developed? Have they better equipment for probing and
photographing distant space? Have they known space travel for millennia
and explored and catalogued the galaxy?
"Now, gentlemen, I hate to provoke a heated discussion but the
computers back me up. The amount of anti-gravitational energy produced
should drive the ship at over twenty times light-speed!"
"Wait, Al," Winthrop said. "Certainly Einstein's whole theory of--"
"You wait," Allan said with tired exasperation. "This math doesn't
parallel Einstein's as we first thought! The differences I haven't
determined. _The_ computers have done that. They do in minutes what it
would take years for me to compute. Perhaps you're faster!"
General Hill said sharply, "No arguments, please! Standards will double
check. All the computers won't err, if these do. Let's assume these
haven't erred. What does it mean, then?"
"That the ship came from Sirius in about half an Earth year," Winthrop
said. "That it may have departed after _they_ realized from visually
observing our first atomic blast that there must be life here, probably
a haven for _them_."
Englander laughed. "So they fled the beasties! Don't take your comics
so seriously, George!"
"Are you sure it's a comic?" Winthrop snapped back. "Ask Rabin what
_he_ thinks!"