"Steady as she goes."
"Yes, sir."
"And that," shrugged Ivy Hendricks, "Is that."
* * * * *
Three weeks passed in the timeless limbo of second-order flight. Blast
tubes silent, the _Cleopatra_ rode the curvature of space toward
Eridanus. At eight and a half light years from Sol, the second-order
was cut so that Bayne could get a star sight. As the lights of the
celestial globe slowly retreated from their unnatural grouping ahead
and astern, brilliant Sirius and its dwarf companion showed definite
disks in the starboard ports. At a distance of 90,000,000 miles from
the Dog Star, its fourteen heavy-gravity planets were plainly visible
through the electron telescope.
Strykalski and Ivy Hendricks stood beside Bayne in the dorsal blister
while the astrogator sighted Altair through his polytant. His long,
horse face bore a look of complete self-approbation when he had
completed his last shot.
"A perfect check with the plotted course! How's that for fancy dead
reckoning?" he exclaimed.
He was destined never to know the accolade, for at that moment the
communicator began to flash angrily over the chart table. Bayne cut it
in with an expression of disgust.
"Is the Captain there?" demanded Celia Graham's voice excitedly.