Lazarus had tears in his eyes for the second time in a month.
They could not simply rendezvous with Earth, set a parking orbit, and disembark; they had-to throw their hats in first. Besides that, they needed first to know what time it was.
Libby was able to establish quickly, through proper motions of nearest stars, that it was not later than about 3700 A.D.; without precise observatory instruments he refused to commit himself further. But once they were close enough to see the Solar planets he had another clock to read; the planets themselves make a clock with nine hands.
For any date there is a unique configuration of those "hands" since no planetary period is exactly commensurate with another. Pluto marks off an "hour" of a quarter of a millennium; Jupiter's clicks a cosmic minute of twelve years; Mercury whizzes a "second" of about ninety days. The other "hands" can refine these readings-Neptune's period is so cantankerously different from that of Pluto that the two fall into approximately repeated configuration only once in seven hundred and fifty-eight years. The great clock can be read with any desired degree of accuracy over any period-but it is not easy to read.
Libby started to read it as soon as any of the planets could be picked out. He muttered over the problem. "There's not a chance that we'll pick up Pluto," he complained to Lazarus, "and I doubt if we'll have Neptune. The inner planets give me an infinite series of approximations-you know as well as I do that "infinite" is a question-begging term. Annoying!"
"Aren't you looking at it the hard way, son? You can get a practical answer. Or move over and I'll get one." -
"Of course I can get a practical answer," Libby said petulantly, "if you're satisfied with that But-"
"But me no 'buts'-what year is it, man!"
"Eh? Let's put it this way. The time rate in the ship and duration on Earth have been unrelated three times. But now they are effectively synchronous again, such that slightly over seventy-four years have passed since we 1eft.'
Lazarus heaved a sigh. "Why didn't you say so?" He had been fretting that Earth might - not be recognizable... they might have torn down New York or something like that.
"Shucks, Andy, you shouldn't have scared me like that."
"Mmm..." said Libby. It was one of no further interest to him. There remained only the delicious problem of inventing a mathematics which would describe elegantly two apparently irreconcilable groups of facts: the Michelson-Morley experiments and the log of the New Frontiers. He set happily about it. Mmm... what was the least number of pamdimensions indispeMably necessary to contain the augmented plenum using a sheaf of postulates affirming- It kept him contented for a considerable time-subjective time, of course.
The ship was placed in a temporary orbit half a billion miles from the Sun with a radius vector normal to the plane of the ecliptic. Parked thus at right angles to and far outside the flat pancake of the Solar System they were safe from any long chance of being discovered. A ship's boat had been fitted with thç neo-Libby drive during the jump and a negotiating party was sent down.
Lazarus wanted to go along; King refused to let him, which sent Lazarus into sulks. King had said curtly, "This isn't a raiding party, Lazarus; this is a diplomatic mission."
"Hell, man, I can be diplomatic when it pays!"
"No doubt But we'll send a man who doesn't go armed to the 'fresher."
Ralph Schultz headed the party, since psychodynamic factors back on Earth were of first importance, but he was aided by legal voluntary and technical specialists. If the Families were going to have to fight for living room it was necessary to know what sort of technology, what sort of weapons, they would have to meet-but it was even more necessary to find out whether or not a peaceful landing could be arranged.
Schultz had been authorized by the elders to offer a plan under which the Families would colonize the thinly settled and retrograded European continent. But it was possible, even likely, that this had already been done in their absence, in view of the radioactive half-lifes involved. Schultz would probably have to improvise some other compromise, depending on the conditions he found.
Again there was nothing to do but wait.
Lazarus endured it in nail-chewing uncertainty. He had claimed publicly that the Families had such great scientific advantage that they could meet and defeat the best that Earth could offer. Privately, he knew that this was sophistry and so did any other Member competent to judge the matter. Knowledge alone did not win wars. The ignorant fanatics of Europe's Middle Ages had defeated the incomparably higher Islamic culture; Archimedes had been struck down by a common soldier; barbarians had sacked Rome. Libby, or some one, might devise an unbeatable, weapon from their mass of new knowledge-or might not and who knew what strides military art had made on earth in three quarters of a century?
King, trained in military art, was worried by the same thing and still more worried by the personnel he would have to work with. The Families were anything but trained legions; the prospect of trying to whip those cranky individualists into some semblance of a disciplined fighting machine ruined his sleep.
These doubts and fears King and Lazarus did not mention even to each other; each was afraid that to mention such things would be to spread a poison of fear through the ship. But they were not alone in their worries; half of the ship's company realized the weaknesses of their position and kept silent only because a bitter resolve to go home, no matter what, made them willing to accept the dangers..
"Skipper,". Lazarus said to King two weeks after Schultz's party had headed Earthside, "have you wondered how they're going to feel about the New Frontiers herself?"
"Eh? What do you mean?'
"Well, we hijacked her. Piracy."
King looked astounded. "Bless me, so we did! Do you know, it's been so long ago that it is hard for me to realize that she was ever anything but my ship... or to recall that I first came into her through an act of piracy." He looked thoughtful, then smiled grimly. "I wonder how conditions are in Coventry these days?"
"Pretty thin rations, I imagine," said Lazarus. "But we'll team up and make out. Never mind-they haven't caught us yet."
"Do you suppose that Slayton Ford will be connected with the matter? That would be hard lines after all he has gone through."
"There may not be any trouble about it at all," Lazarus answered soberly. "While the way we got this ship was kind of irregular, we have used it for the purpose for which it was built-to explore the stars. And we're returning it intact, long before they could have expected any results, and with a slick new space drive to boot. It's more for their money than they had any reason to expect-so they may just decide to forget it and trot out the fatted calf."
"I hope so," King answered doubtfully.
The scouting party was two days late. No signal was received from them until they emerged into normal spacetime, just before rendezvous, as no method had yet been devised for signalling from para-space to ortho-space. While they were maneuvering to rendezvous, King received Ralph Schultz's face on the control-room screen. "Hello, Captain! We'll be boarding shortly to report."
"Give me a summary now!"
"I wouldn't know where to start. But it's all right-we can go home!"
"Huh? How's that? Repeat!"
"Everything's all right. We are restored to the Covenant. You see, there isn't any difference any more. Everybody is a member of the Families now."
"What do you mean?" King demanded.
"They've got it."
"Got what?"
"Got the secret of longevity."
"Huh? Talk sense. There isn't any secret. There never was any secret."
"We didn't have any secret-but they thought we had. So they found it."
"Expiain yourself," insisted Captain King.