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“But... look, Sharan, the odds against my being right. They’re tremendous. And the smallest mistake will leave him lost in space, or aflame on the takeoff. Or suppose he does find us. Suppose he barrels into our atmosphere at ten thousand miles per second and makes his landing in Central Park or the Chicago Loop district?”

“He’s willing to take the chance.”

She let him think without interruption. He drew aimless lines on the tablecloth with his thumbnail. “What would be gained?”

“What would the Beatty One have gained? And you do read the papers, don’t you? Mysterious crash of stratoliner. Father slays family of six. Bank embezzler throws two millions into Lake Erie. Novelist’s girlfriend buried alive. Auto charges noon crowds on busy street corner. We’ve always considered that sort of thing inexplicable, Bard. We’ve made big talk about irrational spells, about temporary insanity, about the way the human mind is prone to go off balance without warning. Isn’t that sort of thing worth stopping, even at a billion to one chance? Religions have been born out of the fantasies the Watchers have planted in the minds of men. Wars have been started for the sake of amusing those who have considered us to be merely images given the appearance of reality by a strange machine.”

Again the silence. He smiled. “How do we start?”

“We’ve worked out a coordinated time system. Their ‘days’ are longer than ours. We’ll have to go to my place. They expect me to bring you there so that contact can be made. It is quicker than searching each time. We have an hour before we have to get there.”

She had a hotel suite. Bedroom and sitting room. Physically there were two people in the room. Mentally there were four. Bard sat in a deep chair, the floor lamp shining down on the pad he held against his knee. Sharan stood by the window.

Through Bard’s lips, Raul said, “We’ll have to make this a four-way discussion, and so all thoughts will have to be vocalized. How will we make identification?”

Sharan said, “This is Leesa speaking. Raul, when you or I speak, we’ll hold up the right hand. That should serve.”

It was agreed. Bard felt the uncanny lifting of his right hand without his own conscious volition. “In Dr. Lane’s mind, Sharan and Leesa, I still find considerable doubt. He seems willing to go along with us, but he is still skeptical.” The hand dropped.

Bard said, “I can’t help it. And I admit to certain animosity, too. Leesa, as I understand it, ruined Project Tempo.”

Sharan lifted her right hand. “Only because I didn’t understand, then. Believe me, Bard. Please. You have to believe me. You see, I—”

Bard’s right hand lifted and Raul said, “Leesa, we haven’t time for that sort of thing. Don’t interrupt for a moment. I want to draw the instrument panel for Dr. Lane.”

Bard Lane felt the pressure that forced him further back from the threshold of volition. His hand grasped the pencil. Quickly a drawing of an old instrument panel began to take shape. Across the top were what appeared to be ten square dials. Each one was calibrated vertically, with a zero at the middle, plus values above, minus values below the zero point. The indicator was a straight line across the dial resting on the zero point. Below each dial were what appeared to be two push buttons, one above the other. Raul murmured, “This is the part that I cannot understand. I have figured out the rest of the controls. The simplest one is directional. A tiny replica of the ship is mounted on a rod at the end of a universal joint. The ship can be turned manually. From what I have gathered from the instruction manuals, the replica is turned to the desired position. The ship itself follows suit, and as it does so, the replica slowly moves back to the neutral position. Above the ten dials is a three-dimensional screen. Once a planet is approached, both planet and ship show on the screen. As the ship gets closer to the surface, the scale becomes smaller so that actual terrain details appear. Landing consists of setting the ship image gently against the image of the planet surface. Such maneuvering is apparently on the same basis as the Beatty One. But there is no hand control for it. There are diaphragms to strap on either side of the larynx and velocity is achieved through the intensity with which a certain vowel is uttered. I tested that portion of the ship by making the vowel sound as softly as I could. The ship trembled. I imagine that the purpose is to enable the pilot to control the ship even when pressure keeps him from lifting a finger. I feel capable of taking the ship up and landing it again. But unless I can understand the ten dials below the three-dimensional screen, it is obvious that no extended voyage can be made.”

The pressure faded. Bard said, “Have you tried to discover the wiring details behind the dials?”

“Yes. I cannot understand it. And it is so complicated that by memorizing one portion at a time and transmitting that portion to you, I feel that it would take at least one of your years before it would be complete, and then I would have no real assurance that it was entirely accurate.”

“Plus and minus values, eh? How good is your translation of the figures? Is your math equivalent to ours?”

“No. Your interval is ten. Ours is nine. The roughest possible comparison would be to say that your value for twenty is the second digit in our third series.”

“Then the nine plus and nine minus values above and below the zero cover a full simple series. I am always wary of snap judgments, but those dials remind me, unmistakably, of the answer column in any computing device. With ten dials and only plus values alone, you could arrive at our equivalent of one billion. Adding in the minus values, you can achieve a really tremendous series of values. The available numbers could be computed as one billion multiplied by nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. Navigation always assumes known coordinates. Assume, for a moment, that the basic future-past relationship is expressed as plus and minus. Assume further that utilizing the varying frames of temporal reference, it is necessary to cross, at the very most, ten time lines to arrive at the most distant star — the star that, from your position, is equidistant no matter in which direction you start out. Now, for any nearer star, there will be a preferred route. There will be an assumed direction. You will intersect the frames of reference at an assumed point. Thus, your controls should be so set as to take advantage, at the proper fractional part of a second, of your plus-minus, or, more accurately, your future-past distortions. This would mean an index number, starting from your position, for each star — not a fixed index number, but a number which, adjusted by a formula to allow for orbital movement and galactic movement, will give you the setting for the controls. One of the unknowns to fit into the equation before using it is your present value for time on your planet. No. Wait a minute. If I were designing the controls I would use a radiation timing device for accuracy, and have the controls work the formula themselves so that the standard star reference number could always be used.”

“It will have to be that way. It has been centuries since we have maintained any record of elapsed time.”

“The buttons under the dials should be the setting device. The upper button should, with each time you push it, lift your indicator one plus notch. The lower button should drop it, one notch at a time, into the minus values. The final number, placed on the dials, should take you across space to the star for that specific setting. It would be the simplest possible type of control which could be used with the Beatty formulas — far simpler than the one on which we were working. But to use it, you must find somewhere, probably on the ship, a manual which will give you a listing of the values for the stars.”