"Mr. Walther."
"Yes, Mr. Daigler?"
"This is obviously no time for recriminations ..."
"Obviously!"
Daigler grinned wryly. "So I won't indulge, though I could think of some. But it happens that I know something professionally about the economics of colonizing."
"Good! We'll use your knowledge."
"Will you let me finish? A prime principle in maintaining a colony out of touch with its supply base is to make it large enough. It's a statistical matter, too small a colony can be overwhelmed by a minor setback. It's like going into a dice game with too little money: three bad rolls and you're sunk. Looking around me, it's evident that we have much less than optimal minimum. In fact--"
"It's what we have, Mr. Daigler."
"I see that. I'm not a wishful thinker. What I want to know is, can we count on the crew as well?"
Mr. Walther shook his head. "This ship will not be decommissioned as long as there are men capable of manning it. There is always hope, no matter how small, that we may find a way home. It is even possible that an Imperial survey ship might discover us. I'm sorry--no."
"That isn't quite what I asked. I was two jumps ahead of you, I figured you wouldn't let the crew colonize. But can we count on their help? We seem to have about six females, give or take one, who will probably help to carry on the race. That means that the next generation of our new nation is going to be much smaller. Such a colony would flicker and die, by statistical probability--unless every man jack of us works ten hours a day for the rest of his life, just to give our children a better chance of making it. That's all right with me, if we all make an all-out try. But it will take all the manpower we have to make sure that some young people who aren't even born yet get by thirty years from now. Will the crew help?"
Mr. Walther said quietly, "I think you can count on it."
"Good enough."
A small, red-faced man whose name Max had never learned interrupted. "Good enough, my eye! I'm going to sue the company, I'm going to sue the ship's officers individually. I'm going to shout it from the ..." Max saw Sam slipping through the crowd to the man's side, the disturbance stopped abruptly.
"Take him to the Surgeon," Mr. Walther said wearily. "He can sue us tomorrow. The meeting is adjourned."
Max started for his room. Eldreth caught up with him. "Max! I want to talk with you."
"All right." He started back toward the lounge.
"No, I want to talk privately. Let's go to your room."
"Huh? Mrs. Dumont would blow her top, then she'd tell Mr. Walther."
"Bother with all that! Those silly rules are dead. Didn't you listen at the meeting?"
"You're the one who didn't listen."
He took her firmly by the arm, turned her toward the public room. They ran into Mr. and Mrs. Daigler coming the other way. Daigler said, "Max? Are you busy?"
"Yes," answered Eldreth.
"No," said Max.
"Hmm ... you two had better take a vote. I'd like to ask Max some questions. I've no objection to your being with us, Eldreth, if you will forgive the intrusion.
She shrugged. "Oh, well, maybe you can handle him. I can't."
They went to the Daiglers' stateroom, larger and more luxurious than Max's and possessing two chairs. The two women perched on the bed, the men took the chairs. Daigler began, "Max, you impress me as a man who prefers to give a straight answer. There are things I want to know that I didn't care to ask out there. Maybe you can tell me."
"I will if I can."
"Good. I've tried to ask Mr. Simes, all I get is a snottily polite brush off. I haven't been able to get in to see the Captain--after today I see that there wouldn't have been any point anyhow. Now, can you tell me, with the mathematics left out, what chance we have to get home? Is it one in three, or one in a thousand--or what?"
"Uh, I couldn't answer it that way."
"Answer it your own way."
"Well, put it this way. While we don't know where we are, we know positively where we aren't. We aren't within, oh, say a hundred light-years of any explored part of the Galaxy."
"How do you know? It seems to me that's a pretty big space to be explored in the weeks since we got off the track."
"It sure is. It's a globe twelve hundred trillion miles thick. But we didn't have to explore it, not exactly."
"Then how?"
"Well, sir, we examined the spectra of all first magnitude stars in sight--and a lot more. None of them is in our catalogues. Some are giants that would be first magnitude anywhere within a hundred light-years of them--they'd be certain to be in the catalogues if a survey ship had ever been that close to them. So we are absolutely certain that we are a long, long way from anywhere that men have ever been before. Matter of fact, I spoke too conservatively. Make it a globe twice as thick, eight times as big, and you'd still be way over on the conservative side. We're _really_ lost."
"Mmm ... I'm glad I didn't ask those questions in the lounge. Is there any possibility that we will ever know where we are?"
"Oh, sure! There are thousands of stars left to examine. Chief Kelly is probably shooting one this minute."
"Well, then, what are the chances that we will eventually find ourselves?"
"Oh, I'd say they were excellent--in a year or two at the outside. If not from single stars, then from globular star clusters. You realize that the Galaxy is a hundred thousand light-years across, more or less, and we can see only stars that are fairly close. But the globular clusters make good landmarks, too." Max added the mental reservation, _if we aren't in the wrong galaxy_. There seemed no point in burdening them with that dismaying possibility.
Daigler relaxed and took out a cigar. "This is the last of my own brand, but I'll risk smoking it now. Well, Maggie, I guess you won't have to learn how to make soap out of wood ashes and hog drippings after all. Whether it's one year or five, we can sweat it out and go home."
"I'm glad." She patted her ornate coiffure with soft, beautifully manicured hands. "I'm hardly the type for it."
"But you don't understand!"
"Eh? What's that, Max?"
"I didn't say we could get back. I just said I thought it was fairly certain we would find out where we are."
"What's the difference? We find out, then we go home."
"No, because we _can't_ be less than a hundred light-years from explored space."
"I don't see the hitch. This ship can do a hundred light-years in a split second. What was the longest leap we made this cruise? Nearly five hundred light-years, wasn't it?"
"Yes, but--" Max turned to Eldreth. "You understand? Don't you?"
"Well, maybe. That folded-scarf thing you showed me?"
"Yes, yes. Mr. Daigler, sure the _Asgard_ can transit five hundred light-years in no time--or any other distance. But _only_ at calculated and surveyed congruencies. We don't know of any within a hundred light-years, at least ... and we won't know of any even if we find out where we are because we know where we _aren't_. Follow me? That means that the ship would have to travel at top speed for something over a hundred years and maybe much longer, just for the first leg of the trip."
Mr. Daigler stared thoughtfully at his cigar ash, then took out a pen knife and cut off the burning end. "I'll save the rest. Well, Maggie, better study up on that homemake soap deal. Thanks, Max. My father was a farmer, I can learn."
Max said impulsively, "I'll help you, sir."
"Oh yes, you did tell us that you used to be a farmer, didn't you? You should make out all right." His eyes swung to Eldreth. "You know what I would do, if I were you kids? I'd get the Captain to marry you right away. Then you'd be all set to tackle colonial life right."
Max blushed to his collar and did not look at Ellie. "I'm afraid I can't. I'm a crew member, I'm not eligible to colonize."