The Long Way Home

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The spaceship flashed out of superdrive and hung in a darkness that blazed with stars. For a moment there was silence, then:

“Where’s the sun?”

Edward Langley swiveled his pilot’s chair around. It was very still in the cabin, only the whisper of ventilators had voice, and he heard his heart thutter with an unnatural loud-ness. Sweat prickled his ribs, the air was hot.

“I... don’t know,” he said finally. The words fell hard and empty. There were screens on the control panel which gave him a view of the whole sky, he saw Andromeda and the Southern Cross and the great sprawl of Orion, but nowhere in that crystal black was the dazzle he had expected.

Weightlessness was like an endless falling.

“We’re in the general region, all right,” he went on after a minute. “The constellations are the same, more or less. But—” His tones faded out.

Four pairs of eyes searched the screens with hunger. Finally Matsumoto spoke. “Over here... in Leo... brightest star visible. Do you see it?”

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