She watched him think it through. He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t.

Judy said it for him: “We’ve got to get back within radio range and let them know we’re okay, or all sorts of hell is going to break loose. So how do we do that?”

“I—without calibrating it we shouldn’t—”

“I just want you to reverse the direction. Send us back the same distance we came. Can you do that?”

“Uh… yes, I suppose so. The error in distance should be the same both ways. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. We could be off in direction as well as distance. We could wind up in the wrong orbit, or underground for that matter.”

Judy tried to weigh the chances of that against the chances of nuclear war. Since France had put missiles in Quebec in response to American missiles in England , both sides were on a launch-on-warning status. If somebody decided they had already used an A-sat weapon… ?

She was starting to feel like a captain again. At least she felt the pressure of being the one in command. Four lives against six billion, hardly a choice except that she had to make it. She heard herself say, “It’s a chance we’ll have to take. Do it.”

Seconds later she was convulsed in laughter. It was an involuntary reaction. The giggles had won.

Allen stared at her for a moment before he ventured, “Are you all right?”

Judy fought for control, and eventually found it. She wiped fat globules of tears away from her eyes and sniffed. “Yeah,” she said. “It just hit me.” She pitched her voice in heroic tones and said, “’I’ll take that chance, Scotty! Give me warp speed!’ God, if only the Enterprise had flown.”

Allen looked puzzled for a second before comprehension lit up his face. “The first shuttle. Okay.” He laughed quietly and turned to his keyboard. As he typed in the coordinates he said, “You know, I did try to buy the Enterprise for this, but I couldn’t come up with the cash.”