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"Hmm . . ." King replied. "I see what you mean. But I'd certainly like to try it, damn if I wouldn't! But
I admit it's out of the question with passengers inboard. Very well, prepare for me roughed courses to
type '0' stars lying inside this trumpet-flower locus of yours and not too far away. Say ten light-years for
your first search."
"Yes, sir. I have. I can't offer anything in that range in the '0' types."
"So? Lonely out here, isn't it? Well?'
"We have Tau Ceti inside the locus at eleven light-years." -
"A 05, eh? Not too good."
"No, sir. But we have a true Sol type, a 02-catalog ZD9817. But it's more than twice as far away."
Captain King chewed a knuckle. "I suppose I'll have to put it up to the elders. How much subjective
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time advantage are we enjoying?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Eh? Well~ work it out! Or give me the data and I will. I don't claim to be the mathematician you are,
but any cadet could solve that one. The equations are simple enough." -
"So they are, sir. But I don't have the data to substitute in the time-contraction equation . . -. because
I have no way now to measure the ship's speed. The violet shift is useless to use; we don't know what the
lines mean. I'm afraid we must wait until we have worked up a much longer baseline."
King sighed. "Mister, I sometimes wonder why I got into this business. Well, are you willing to
venture a best guess? Long time? Short time?"
"Uh . . . a long time, sir. Years."
"So? Well, I've sweated it out in worse ships. Years, eh? Play any chess?"
"I have, sir." Libby did not mention that he had given up the game long ago for lack of adequate
competition.
"Looks like we'd have plenty of time to play. King's pawn;to king four."
"King's knight to bishop three."
"An unorthodox player, eh? Well, I'll answer you later. I suppose I'd better try to sell them the 02
eyen though it takes longer . . . and I suppose I'd better caution Ford to start some contests and things.
Can't have 'em getting coffin fever."
"Yes, sir. Did I mention deceleration time? It works out to just under one Earth year, subjective, at a
negative one-gee, to slow us to stellar speeds."
"Eh? We'll decelerate the same way we accelerated-with your light-pressure drive."
Libby shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir. The drawback of the light-pressure drive is that it makes no
difference what your previous course and speed may be; if you go inertialess in the near neighborhood of
a star, its light pressure kicks you away from it like a cork hit by a stream of water. Your previous
momentum is canceled out when you cancel your inertia."
"Well," King conceded, "let's assume that we will follow your schedule. I can't argue with you yet;
there are still some things about that gadget of yours that I don't understand."
"There are lots of things about it," Libby answered seriously, "that I don't understand either."
The ship had flicked by Earth's orbit less than ten minutes after Libby cut in his space drive. Lazarus
and he had discussed the esoteric physical aspects of it all the way to the orbit of Mars-less than a
quarter hour. Jupiter's path was far distant when Barstow called the organization conference. But it killed
an hour to find them all in the crowded ship; by the time he called them to order they were a billion miles
out beyond the orbit of Saturn-elapsed time from "Go!" less than an hour and a half.
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But the blocks get longer after Saturn. Uranus found them still in discussion. Nevertheless Ford's
name was agreed on and he had accepted before the ship was as far from the Sun as is Neptune. King
had been named captain, had toured his new command with Lazarus as guide, and was already in
conference with his astrogator when the ship passed the orbit of Pluto nearly four billion miles deep into
space, but still less than six hours after the Sun's light had blasted them away.
Even then they were not outside the Solar System, but between them and the stars lay nothing but the
winter homes of Sol's comets and hiding places of hypothetical trans-Plutonian planets-space in which the
Sun holds options but can hardly be said to own in fee simple. But even the nearest stars were still
light-years away. New Frontiers was headed for them at a pace which crowded the heels of
light-weather cold, track fast.
Out, out, and still farther out . . . out to the lonely depths where world lines are almost straight,
undistorted by gravitation. Each day, each month . . . each year . . . their headlong flight took them farther
from all humanity.
PART TWO
The ship lunged on, alone in the desert of night, each lightyear as empty as the last. The Families built
up a way of life in her.
The New Frontiers was approximately cylindrical. When not under acceleration, she was spun on her
axis to give pseudo-weight to passengers near the outer skin of the ship; the outer or "lower"
compartments were living quarters while the innermost or "upper" compartments were store-rooms and
so forth. Between compartments were shops, hydroponic farms and such. Along the axis, fore to aft,
were the control room, the converter, and the main drive.
The design will be recognized as similar to that of the larger free-flight interplanetary ships in use
today, but it is necessary to bear in mind her enormous size. She was a city, with ample room for a
colony of twenty thousand, which would have allowed the planned complement of ten thousand to
double their numbers during the long voyage to Proxima Centauri.
Thus, big as she was, the hundred thousand and more of the Families found themselves overcrowded
fivefold.
They put up with it only long enough to rig for cold-sleep. By converting some recreation space on
the lower levels to storage, room was squeezed out for the purpose. Somnolents require about one per
cent the living room needed by active, functioning humans; in time the ship was roomy enough for those
still awake. Volunteers for cold-sleep were not numerous at first-these people were more than commonly
aware of death because of their unique heritage; cold-sleep seemed too much like the Last Sleep. But the
great discomfort of extreme overcrowding combined with the equally extreme monotony of the endless
voyage changed their minds rapidly enough to provide a steady supply for the little death as fast as they
could be accommodated.
Those who remained awake were kept humping simply to get the work done-the ship's houskeeping,
tending the hydroponic farms and the ship's auxiliary machinery and, most especially, caring for the
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somnolents themselves. Biomechanicians have worked out complex empirical formulas describing body
deterioration and the measures which must be taken to offset it under various conditions of impressed
acceleration, ambient temperature, the drugs used, and other factors such as metabolic age, body mass,
sex, and so forth. By using the upper, low-weight compartments, deterioration caused by acceleration
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