“But that’s another hundred and ten hours.”

“All right, I’ll go to sleep in the armchair here as soon as the effect of the sporamin

The girl stood deep in thought for a time but at last decided to speak.

“Perhaps we should decrease the radius of the circle? Suppose something’s gone wrong with their transmitter?”

“Certainly not! If you reduce the radius without reducing speed you’ll break up the ship. If you reduce speed you’ll be left without anameson

“I know that. But couldn’t they…”

“No, they couldn’t. Aeons ago people could be careless or could deceive each other and themselves. But not today!”

“That’s not what I wanted to say.” The sharpness of her retort showed that the girl was offended. “I was going to say that Algrab may have deviated from its course looking for us.”

“It couldn’t have deviated so much. It must have left at the time computed and agreed on. If the improbable had happened and both transmitters had been put out of action it would have had to cross the circle diametrically and we should have heard it on the planetary receiver.

There’s no possibility of a mistake — there it is, the rendezvous planet.”

Erg Noor pointed to the mirror screens in deep niches on all four sides of the control tower. Countless stars burned in the profound blackness. A tiny grey disc, barely illuminated by a sun very far away from them, from the outer edge of the system B-7336-S+87-A, was crossing the forward port screen.

“Our bomb beacons

Erg Noor hesitated as though he did not wish to finish the sentence, “Algrab is lost!”

“But suppose it isn’t, suppose it has only been damaged by a meteoroid and cannot regain its speed?” objected the auburn-haired girl.

“Can’t regain its speed!” repeated Erg Noor. “Isn’t that the same thing? If there is a journey thousands of years long between the ship and its goal, so much the worse — instead of instantaneous death there will be years of hopelessness for the doomed. Perhaps they will call. If they do, we’ll know… on Earth… in about six years’ time.”