Biron said, "Put it away."
The Autarch did so. He said, "What has your father told you about the document?"
"Nothing that you don't know, since he worked for you."
The Autarch smiled. "Quite so!" but the smile had little of real amusement in it.
"Are you quite through with your explanation now?"
"Quite through."
"Then," said Biron, "get off the ship."
Gillbret said, "Now wait, Biron. There's more than private pique to be considered here. There's Artemisia and myself, too, you know. We have something to say. As far as I'm concerned, what the Autarch says makes sense. I'll remind you that on Rhodia I saved your life, so I think my' views are to be considered."
"All right. You saved my life," shouted Biron. He pointed a finger towards the air lock. "Go with him, then. Go on. You get out of here too'. You wanted to find the Autarch. There he is! I agreed to pilot you to him, and my responsibility is over. Don't try to tell me what to do."
He turned to Artemisia, some of his anger still brimming over. "And what about you? You saved my life too. Everyone went around saving my life. Do you want to go with him too?"
She said calmly, "Don't put words into my mouth, Biron. If I wanted to go with him, I'd say so."
"Don't feel any obligations. You can leave any time."
She looked hurt and he turned away. As usual, some cooler part of himself knew that he was acting childishly. He had been made to look foolish by Jonti and he was helpless in the face of the resentment he felt. And besides, why should they all take so calmly the thesis that it was perfectly right to have Biron Farrill thrown to the Tyranni, like a bone to the dogs, in order to keep them off Jonti's neck. Damn it, what did they think he was?
He thought of the dud bomb, the Rhodian liner, the Tyranni, the wild night on Rhodia, and he could feel the stinging of self-pity inside himself.
The Autarch said, "Well, Farrill?"
And Gillbret said, "Well, Biron?"
Biron turned to Artemisia. "What do you think?"
Artemisia said calmly, "I think he has three ships out there still, and is Autarch of Lingane, besides. I don't think you really have a choice."
The Autarch looked at her, and he nodded his admiration. "You are an intelligent girl, my lady. It is good that such a mind should be in such a pleasant exterior." For a measurable moment his eyes lingered.
Biron said, "What's the deal?"
"Lend me the use of your names and your abilities, and I will take you to what my Lord Gillbret called the rebellion world."
Biron said sourly, "You think there is one?"
And Gillbret said simultaneously, "Then it is yours."
The Autarch smiled. "I think there is a world such as my lord described, but it is not mine."
"It's not yours," said Gillbret despondently. "Does that matter, if I can find it?"
"How?" demanded Biron.
The Autarch said, "It is not so difficult as you might think. If we accept the story as it has been told us, we must believe that there exists a world in rebellion against the Tyranni. We must believe that it is located somewhere in the Nebular Sector and that in twenty years it has remained undiscovered by the Tyranni. If such a situation is to remain possible, there is only one place in the Sector where such a planet can exist."
"And where is that?"
"You do not find the solution obvious? Doesn't it seem inevitable that the world could exist only within the Nebula itself?"
"Inside the Nebula!"
Gillbret said, "Great Galaxy, of course."
And, at the moment, the solution did indeed seem obvious and inescapable.
Artemisia said timidly, "Can people live on worlds inside the Nebula?"
"Why not?" said the Autarch. "Don't mistake the Nebula. It is a dark mist in space, but it is not a poison gas. It is an incredibly attenuated mass of sodium, potassium, and calcium atoms that absorb and obscure the light of the stars within it, and, of course, those on the side directly opposite the observer. Otherwise, it is harmless, and, in the direct neighborhood of a star, virtually undetectable.
"I apologize if I seem pedantic, but I have spent the last several months at the University of Earth collecting astronomical data on the Nebula."
"Why there?" said Biron. "It is a matter of little importance, but I met you there and I am curious."
"There's no mystery to it. I left Lingane originally on my own business. The exact nature is of no importance. About six months ago I visited Rhodia. My agent, Widemos-your father, Biron-had been unsuccessful in his negotiations with the Director, whom we had hoped to swing to our side. I tried to improve matters and failed, since Hinrik, with apologies to the lady, is not the type of material for our sort of work."
"Hear, hear," muttered Biron.
The Autarch continued. "But I did meet Gillbret, as he may have told you. So I went to Earth, because Earth is the original home of humanity. It was from Earth that most of the original explorations of the Galaxy set out. It is upon Earth that most of the records exist. The Horsehead Nebula was explored quite thoroughly; at least, it was passed through a number of times. It was never settled, since the difficulties of traveling through a volume of space where stellar observations could not be made were too great. The explorations themselves, however, were all I needed.
"Now listen carefully. The Tyrannian ship upon which my Lord Gillbret was marooned was struck by a meteor after its first Jump. Assuming that the trip from Tyrann to Rhodia was along the usual trade route-and there is no reason to suppose anything else-the point in space at which the ship left its route is established. It would scarcely have traveled more than half a million miles in ordinary space between the first two Jumps. We can consider such a length as a point in space.
"It is possible to make another assumption. In damaging the control panels, it was quite possible that the meteor might have altered the direction of the Jumps, since that would require only an interference with the motion of the ship's gyroscope. This would be difficult but not impossible. To change the power of the hyperatomic thrusts, however, would require complete smashing of the engines, which, of course, were not touched by the meteor.
"With unchanged power of thrust, the length of the four remaining Jumps would not be changed, nor, for that matter, would their relative directions. It would be analogous to having a long, crooked wire bent at a single point in an unknown direction through an unknown angle. The final position of the ship would lie somewhere on the surface of an imaginary sphere, the center of which would be that point in space where the meteor struck, and the radius of which would be the vector sum of the remaining Jumps.
"I plotted such a sphere, and that surface intersects a thick extension of the Horsehead Nebula. Some six thousand square degrees of the sphere's surface, one fourth of the total surface, lies in the Nebula. It remains, therefore, only to find a star lying within the Nebula and within one million miles or so of the imaginary surface we are discussing. You will remember that when Gillbret's ship came to rest, it was within reach of a star.
"Now how many stars within the Nebula do you suppose we can find that close to the sphere's surface? Remember there are one hundred billion radiating stars in the Galaxy."
Biron found himself absorbed in the matter almost against his will. "Hundreds, I suppose."
"Five!" replied the Autarch. "Just five. Don't be fooled by the one hundred billion figure. The Galaxy is about seven trillion cubic light-years in volume, so that there are seventy cubic light-years per star on the average. It is a pity that I do not know which of those five have habitable planets. We might reduce the number of possibles to one. Unfortunately, the early explorers had no time for detailed observations. They plotted the positions of the stars, the proper motions, and the spectral types."
"So that in one of those five stellar system," said Biron, "is located the rebellion world?"
"Only that conclusion would fit the facts we know."