After more than an hour with transition forty-five. minutes away Captain Blaine looked up and said, "All right, boys, we're getting close. Slam them to us as fast as you can now."
Smythe and Kovak, with Noguchi and Bennett running for them, slipped into high gear; data poured out in a steady stream. Max continued to work every sight, programming his own in his head and calling off figures faster than he wrote them down. He noticed that Simes was sweating, sometimes erasing and starting over. But the figures Simes called out agreed with what Max thought they should be, from his own mental programming. Captain Blaine seemed relaxed, though he had not speeded up materially and sometimes was still using the computer when Max was ready to pour his sight into it.
At one point Simes spoke too rapidly, slurring his figures, Lundy promptly said, "Repeat, sir!"
"Confound it! Clean out your ears!" But Simes repeated. The Captain glanced up, then bent back to his own problem. As soon as the computer was free Captain Blaine called his own figures to Lundy. Max had already set up the Captain's sight in his mind, was subconsciously listening while watching Simes.
An alarm bell rang in his mind. "Captain! I don't check you!"
Captain Blaine stopped. "Eh?"
"That program is wrong, sir."
The Captain did not seem angry. He simply handed his programming board to Simes. "Check me, sir."
Simes glanced quickly at the figures. "I check you, sir!"
Blaine said, "Drop out, Jones. Mr. Simes and I will finish."
"But--"
"Drop out, Mister!"
Max got out of the circle, seething inside. Simes' check of the Captain's set up hadn't meant anything, unless Simes had listened to and remembered (as Max had) the data as it came in. The Captain had transposed an eight and a three in the fifth and sixth decimal places--the set up would look okay unless one knew the correct figures. If Simes had even bothered to check it, he added bitterly.
But Max could not keep from noting and processing the data in his mind. Simes' next sight should catch the Captain's error; his correction should repair it. It would be a big correction, Max knew; traveling just under the speed of light the ship clipped a million miles in less than six seconds.
Max could see Simes hesitate as the lights from his next sight popped up on the computer and Lundy translated them back. Why, the man looked frightened! The correction called for would push the ship extremely close to critical speed--Simes paused, then ordered less than half the amount that Max believed was needed.
Blaine applied it and went on with his next problem. When the answer came out the error, multiplied by time and unthinkable velocity, was more glaring than ever. The Captain threw Simes a glance of astonishment, then promptly made a correction. Max could not tell what it was, since it was done without words by means of the switch in his lap.
Simes licked the dryness from his lips. "Captain?"
"Time for just one more sight," Blaine answered. "I'll take it myself, Mr. Simes."
The data were passed to him, he started to lay his problem out on the form. Max saw him erase, then look up; Max followed his gaze. The pre-set on the chronometer above the computer showed the seconds trickling away. "Stand by!" Blaine announced.
Max looked up. The stars were doing the crawling together that marked the last moments before transition. Captain Blaine must have pressed the second switch, the one that would kick them over, while Max was watching, for the stars suddenly blinked out and were replaced instantaneously by another starry firmament, normal in appearance.
The Captain lounged back, looked up. "Well," he said happily, "I see we made it again." He got up and headed for the hatch, saying over his shoulder, "Call me when you have laid us in the groove, Mr. Simes." He disappeared down the hatch.
Max looked up again, trying to recall from the charts he had studied just what piece of this new sky they were facing. Kelly was looking up, too. "Yes, we came through," Max heard him mutter. "But _where?_"
Simes also had been looking at the sky. Now he swung around angrily. "What do you mean?"
"What I said," Kelly insisted. "That's not any sky I ever saw before."
"Nonsense, man! You just haven't oriented yourself. Everybody knows that a piece of sky can look strange when you first glance at it. Get out the flat charts for this area; we'll find our landmarks quickly enough."
"They are out, sir. Noguchi."
It took only minutes to convince everyone else in the control room that Kelly was right, only a little longer to convince even Simes. He finally looked up from the charts with a face greenish white. "Not a word to anybody," he said. "That's an order--and I'll bust any man who slips. Kelly, take the watch."
"Aye aye, sir."
"I'll be in the Captain's cabin." He went below to tell Blaine that the _Asgard_ had come out in unknown space--was lost.
14 ANYWHERE
Two hours later Max climbed wearily up into the Worry Hole. He had just had a bad half hour, telling the truth as he saw it. Captain Blaine had been disinclined to blame anyone but himself, but had seemed stunned and bewildered. Simes had been nasty. His unstated logic seemed to be that, since it could not possibly be his fault and since it was unthinkable to blame the Captain, it must be Max's fault. Since Max had been relieved some minutes before transition, his theory seemed to be that Max had caused it by making a disturbance as they were approaching the critical instant--joggled their elbows, so to speak.
Mr. Walther had been present, a mute judge. They spoke of matters' outside his profession; he had seemed to be studying their faces. Max had stuck doggedly to his story.
He found Kelly still on watch. Kovak and Smythe were taking spectrograms; Noguchi and Lundy were busy with papers. "Want to be relieved?" he said to Kelly.
Kelly looked troubled. "I'm sorry, but you can't."
"Huh?"
"Mr. Simes phoned while you were on your way up. He says you are not to stand duty until further notice."
"He did? Well, I'm not surprised."
"He also said that you were to stay out of the control room."
Max made a violent statement about Simes. He added, "Well, it was nice while it lasted. Be seeing you."
He turned away but Kelly stopped him. "Don't be in a hurry, Max. He won't be up for a while. I want to know what happened. From the computer I can't tell what goes on."
Max told him, drawing on his memory for the figures. Kelly nodded at last. "That confirms what I've been able to dig out. The Captain flubbed with a transposition--easy to do. Then Simes didn't have the guts to make a big correction when it came around to him. But one more thing you don't know. Neither do they--yet."
"Huh? What?"
"The power room recorder shows it. Guenther had the watch down there and gave it to me over the phone. No, I didn't tell him anything was wrong. I just asked for the record; that's not unusual. By the way, any excitement down below? Passengers blowing their tops?"
"Not when I came up."
"Won't be long. They can't keep this quiet forever. Back to my story--things were already sour but the Captain had one last chance. He applied the correction and a whopping big one. But he applied it with the wrong sign, just backwards."
Profanity was too weak. All Max could say was, "Oh, my!"
"Yeah. Well, there's the devil to pay and him out to lunch."
"Any idea where we are?"
Kelly pointed to Kovak and Smythe at the spectrostellograph. "They're fishing, but no bites. Bright stars first, B-types and O's. But there is nothing that matches the catalogues so far."
Noguchi and Lundy were using a hand camera. Max asked, "What are _they_ doing?"
"Photographing the records. All of 'em--programming sheets, the rough data from the chartsmen, the computer tape, everything."
"What good will that do?"