Chapter 10

Dusty gripped the ‘Tee’ bar and started to turn the ship toward the new beacon. His approach to dead center was ragged—he overshot and over-corrected, but finally he made it. And then with a burst of good sense, Dusty released the ‘Tee’ bar very gently and leaned back in his pilot’s chair. The crosshairs stayed on their winking beacon.

Gant Nerley nodded. “Turn the presentation to ‘Polar’ again, and keep a sharp eye out for a slow beacon along Radius Q-103. You probably made a wide curve around that other beacon and you may be a bit too close to a gas field. You’d burn up in milliseconds if you hit it at your present speed. By the way, what color is the presentation now?”

“It’s getting lighter. Sort of yellowish-white, like.”

“Good. But if and when it begins to blue-up a bit you’d better let up on the ‘Force’ pedal by a notch or more. Competent pilots can run with their screen in the violet, but you’re far from being a competent pilot.” He saw the look on Dusty’s face and added hastily, “I mean that you’ve had no experience in galactic travel, Dusty Britton. You’re doing magnificently so far. We’d best take no dangerous chances, though, until you have driven interstellar craft as many hours as you’ve driven your own interplanetary ships.”

Barbara made a choked sound and then covered it by saying, “I see the slow beacon, Dusty. Out there on Circle D-212, along Radius Q-103.”

It was pulsing slowly, rising to full brilliancy over a period of more than a minute and falling again, never really winking out to invisibility. It lay alone in the star-field; the gas cloud behind it must be of the same nature as any of the so-called ‘dark nebulae’ or dust clouds that obscure the stars behind it. But it was far to one side (Circle D-212) and it seemed reasonable to view it calmly.

“How much time have I?” he asked Gant Nerley.

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Good. I want a cigarette and a drink.”

It was with increased confidence that Dusty swooped around the next beacon and headed on towards the next—and the next—and then around a long curveway limned by four of the winking beacons and once more along a long field-free course towards a winker that lay dead ahead for quite some distance.

There was one quick jog between two beacons set at an angle like the flags of a slalom run on skis; a wide ‘S’ curve around the outside of the first, up and over, between, then out and around the second beacon in a long ogee to locate the freeway to the next beacon star. There was a quick turn that took the plane-locating phanobeacon off the screen for several minutes and then another one that put the phanobeacon almost on the crosshairs, and then another slight turn that put the phanobeacon on the lower corner of the viewpanel again. It was, according to Gant Nerley, a “most remarkable rift!” At which Dusty shrugged because he had never seen any other rift. It looked plenty complicated to Dusty, and he shuddered to think of what a really tortuous galactic passage would be like.