Mr. Walther's sharp, clear voice rang out. "Don't go away, anyone! I have additional announcements to make." His manner ignored what they had all just seen. "The time has come to sum up our present situation. As you can see, this planet is much like our Mother Earth. Tests must be made to be sure that the atmosphere is breathable, and so forth; the Surgeon and the Chief Engineer are making them now. But it seems likely that this new planet will prove to be eminently suitable for human beings, probably even more friendly than Earth.
"So far, we have seen no indications of civilized life. On the whole, that seems a good thing. Now as to our resources-- The _Asgard_ carries a variety of domestic animals, they will be useful and should be conserved as breeding stock. We have an even wider variety of useful plants, both in the ship's hydroponic gardens and carried as seeds. We have a limited but adequate supply of tools. Most important of all the ship's library contains a fair cross-section of our culture. Equally important, we ourselves have our skills and traditions ..."
"Mr. Walther!"
"Yes, Mr. Hornsby?"
"Are you trying to tell us that you are dumping us here?"
Walther looked at him coldly. "No. Nobody is being 'dumped' as you put it. You can stay in the ship and you will be treated as a guest as long as the _Asgard_-- or you yourself--is alive. Or until the ship reaches the destination on your ticket. If it does. No, I have been trying to discuss reasonably an open secret; this ship is lost."
A voiceless sigh went through the room. All of them knew it, but up till now it had not been admitted officially. The flat announcement from a responsible officer echoed like the sentence of a court.
"Let me state the legal position," Mr. Walther went on. "While this ship was in space you passengers were subject to the authority of the Captain, as defined by law, and through him you were subject to me and the other ship's officers. Now we have landed. You may go freely ... or you may stay. Legally this is an unscheduled stopover; if the ship ever leaves here you may return to it and continue as passengers. That is my responsibility to you and it will be carried out. But I tell you plainly that at present I have no hope to offer that we will ever leave here--which is why I spoke of colonizing. We are lost."
In the rear of the room a woman began to scream hysterically, with incoherent sounds of, "... home! I want to go home! Take me ..."
Walther's voice cut through the hubbub. "Dumont! Flannigan! Remove her. Take her to the Surgeon."
He continued as if nothing had happened. "The ship and the ship's crew will give every assistance possible, consistent with my legal responsibility to keep the ship in commission, to aid any of you who wish to colonize. Personally I think ..."
A surly voice cut in, "Why talk about 'law'? There is no law here!"
Walther did not even raise his voice. "But there is. As long as this ship is in commission, there is law, no matter how many light-years she may be from her home port. Furthermore, while I have no authority over any who choose to leave the ship, I strongly advise you to make it your first act dirtside to hold a town meeting, elect officers, and found a constitutional government. I doubt that you can survive otherwise."
"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."