"You don't understand. My father mentioned it to me first six months ago. He must have learned of it in the library on Rhodia. If you've been through it yourself, can't you tell me what it was he must have learned?"
But Gillbret could only shake his head.
Biron said, "Well, continue with your story."
Gillbret said, "They spoke of the Autarch of Lingane, your father and my cousin. Despite your father's cautious phraseology, Biron, it was obvious that the Autarch was the fount and head of the conspiracy.
"And then"-he hesitated-"there was a mission from Lingane and the Autarch himself was at its head. I-I told him of the rebellion world."
"You said a while ago you told nobody," said Biron.
"Except the Autarch. I had to know the truth."
"What did he tell you?"
"Practically nothing. But then, he had to be cautious too. Could he trust me? I might have been working for the Tyranni. How could he know? But he didn't close the door altogether. It's our only lead."
"Is it?" Biron said. "Then we'll go to Lingane. One place, I suppose, is like another."
Mention of his father had depressed him, and, for the moment, nothing mattered much. Let it be Lingane.
Let it be Lingane! That was easy to say. But how does one go about pointing the ship. at a tiny speck of light thirty-five light-years away. Two hundred trillion miles. A two with fourteen zeros after it. At ten thousand miles an hour (current cruising speed of the Remorseless) it would take well over two million years to get there.
Biron leafed through the Standard Galactic Ephemeris with something like despair. Tens of thousands of stars were listed in detail, with their positions crammed into three iigures. There were hundreds of pages of these figures, symbolized by the Greek letters? (rho),? (theta), and f (phi). ? was the distance from the Galactic Center in parsecs;?, the angular separation, along the plane of the Galactic Lens from the Standard Galactic Baseline (the line, that is, which connects the Galactic Center and the sun of the planet, Earth); f the angular separation from the Baseline in the plane perpendicular to that of the Galactic Lens, the two latter measurements being expressed in radians. Given those three figures, one could locate any star accurately in all the vast immensity of space.
That is, on a given date. In addition to the star's position on the standard day for which all the data were calculated, one had to know the star's proper motion, both speed and direction. It was a small correction. comparatively, but necessary. A million miles is virtually nothing compared with stellar distances, but it is a long way with a ship.
There was, of course, the question of the ship's own position. One could calculate the distance from Rhodia by the reading of the massometer, or, more correctly, the distance from Rhodia's sun, since this far out in space the sun's gravitational field drowned out that of any of its planets. The direction they were traveling with reference to the Galactic Baseline was more difficult to determine. Biron had to locate two known stars other than Rhodia's sun. From their apparent positions and the known distance from Rhodia's sun, he could plot their actual position.
It was roughly done but, he felt sure, accurately enough. Knowing his own position and that of Lingane's sun, he had only to adjust the controls for the proper direction and strength of the hyperatornic thrust.
Biron felt lonely and tense. Not frightened! He rejected the word. But tense, definitely. He was deliberately calculating the elements of the Jump for a time six hours later. He wanted plenty of time to check his figures. And perhaps there might be the chance for a nap. He had dragged the bed makings out of the cabin and it was ready for him now.
The other two were, presumably, sleeping in the cabin. He told himself that that was a good thing and that he wanted nobody around bothering him, yet when he heard the small sound of bare feet outside, he looked up with a certain eagerness.
"Hello," he said, "why aren't you sleeping?"
Artemisia stood in the doorway, hesitating. She said, in a small voice, "Do you mind if I come in? Will I be bothering you?"
"It depends on what you do."
"I'll try to do the right things."
She seemed too humble, Biron thought suspiciously, and then the reason for it came out.
"I'm awfully frightened," she said. "Aren't you?"
He wanted to say no, not at all, but it didn't come out that way. He smiled sheepishly, and said, "Sort of."
Oddly enough, that comforted her. She knelt down on the floor beside him and looked at the thick volumes opened before him and at the sheets of calculations.
"They had all these books here?"
"You bet. They couldn't pilot a ship without them."
"And you understand all that?"
"Not all that. I wish I did. I hope I understand enough. We'll have to Jump to Lingane, you know."
"Is that hard to do?"
"No, not if you know the figures, which are all here, and have the controls, which are all there, and if you have experience, which I haven't. For instance, it should be done in several Jumps, but I'm going to try it in one because there'll be less chance of trouble, even though it means a wasteful use of energy."
He shouldn't tell her; there was no point ill telling her; it would be cowardly to frighten her; and she'd be hard to handle if she got really frightened, panicky frightened. He kept telling himself all that and it did no good. He wanted to share it with somebody. He wanted part of it off his own mind.
He said, "There are some things I should know that I don't. Things like the mass density between here and Lingane affect the course of the Jump, because that mass density is what controls the curvature of this part of the universe. The Ephemeris-that's this big book here-mentions the curvature corrections that must be made in certain standard Jumps, and from those you're supposed to be able to calculate your own particular corrections. But then if you happen to have a super giant within ten light-years, all bets are off. I'm not even sure if I used the computer correctly."