Part 3

"But your supposition does not recognize the doppler effect," objected Hammond. "Visible light will be out of the visible spectrum."

"True enough. But solar radiation extends from down low in the electromagnetic scale to very very high in the extra-hard UV. Visible spectra will be dopplered into the UV, all right, but the radio waves will have an apparent frequency of light, and we shall see the stars by that, I think."

"With no change in color?" asked Hammond skeptically.

"There will be a change in color, naturally. We'll observe them in accordance with whatever long waves they emit; they will in no way resemble the familiar stars we know."

"How's a poor devil going to navigate at any rate?" asked Larry. "With everything out of place--or invisible--what's he going to use for signposts?"

"In normal usage, the super drive will be fine. We've been using autopilots for years and years, setting up the whole course from take-off to the last half hour of landing. We can still do it. We'll be flying blind, but so what? We fly pretty blind as it is; no one gives a rap about the sky outside. Instrument flying is our best bet."

"Well," said Hammond, "we'll see it soon enough. The color of the stars behind us are changing right now."

"They should. We're running at three quarters of light--and, Stevey Boy, they're still visible!"

Silently they watched the sky. Dead below them, a tiny black circle appeared and the stars that once occupied this circle were flowing away from it radially. It expanded, and the region of flow spread circularly, and the bowl of the sky moved like a fluid thing towards the top of the ship until the stars at their nose were crowding together. Stars appeared there, new stars caused by the crossing of electromagnetic waves from the rear, and the sky took on an alien sight.

For a long time the stars seemed to tighten in their positions above the ship, and then the warning bell rang and the ship swapped ends easily and the bowl of the sky was below them.

Then it began to return to the fore observation point of the _Haywire Queen_ as the velocity of the ship dropped. The crawl started, and the black circle diminished until it was gone. The stars continued to regain their familiar color as the _Haywire Queen_ approached the normal velocities used by mankind.

* * * * *

Five hours after their start, the _Haywire Queen_ slid clumsily to a stop beside Station 1 and made a landing. She arced a bit, since the charge-generating equipment did not have the refinements of the Lens flitters for making the ship assume the charge of the destined station. But the arc was not too bad, and within a minute after the _Haywire Queen_ touched the landing deck, John McBride was knocking on the door of Dr. Caldwell's office in the hospital.

Caldwell came out of the inner door to answer the summons, and he looked up at McBride and went dead-white.

"Mac! It's you?"

"Naturally," smiled McBride. "How's Enid?"

"How did you get here?" demanded Doc.

"That's a long yarn, Doc, and it includes a whole engineering program, exceeding the velocity of light, and using a space warp as a traveling companion. How's Enid?"

"She was none too good, but we'll have her through now. Come on in!"

"First tell Tommy that the _Haywire Queen_ is on the landing deck and that they're to have anything they need if we have to kill the lens to give it to them!"

"I heard that, John," said Tommy, coming in the door. "It's done." He turned on his heel and left immediately.

John approached the bedside. "Enid," he said softly.

Enid's eyes fluttered. A wave of pain passed across her face and she tried to move. McBride looked at the doctor.

"Go ahead, John," said Doc.

"Enid. I'm here. It's John."

Enid opened her mouth, gasped once, and said in a very weak voice: "John? Here?"

"Nowhere else."

"But you ... were on ... Pluto--?"

McBride thought that one over. How could he explain? He decided not to, and said: "I've been coming back for a long time, Enid. I'm here now--that's all that counts."

"Yes, John," said Enid.

"She'll be all right now," said Caldwell. "That's what she needed."

Another wave of pain crossed Enid's face, and a nurse came with a filled hypo.

Caldwell drew McBride out. "Another half hour will see her through," he told John. "You wait here and everything will be all right. I know that now, thank God."

Caldwell left McBride to re-enter Enid's room.

Steve Hammond and Sandra Drake entered the office. "How is she?" asked Hammond.

"Doc says she's going to be all right, now. I've seen her and Doc says she's perking up already."

"Good!" said Steve. "Drake, that was a nice piece of navigating. You hit Station 1 right on the nose."

Sandra felt a whole library of emotions, mixed together. She smiled a sickly smile and said: "I should have. I've been here before, remember?"

Hammond ignored the statement because he thought it sounded too much like bluster. "Drake," he said, "the _Haywire Queen_ is about ready to hop for Terra. Do you feel up to running it in?"

"Steve," snapped Sandra Drake, "I'm not going to let any idiot male handle the _Haywire Queen_, and don't you forget it! After all, I'm the only pilot in the solar system that knows how to run her! I'll personally strangle both you and whomever you think you're going to get for that job, understand?"

Sandra turned and left.

"What in the name of the seven hells has got that dame?" asked McBride.

"There are a lot of ways to kill a cat besides choking it to death with cream," said Hammond thoughtfully, "but the latter way is just as effective and sometimes a lot easier. Our she-barracuda has just hit the one thing that she can't fight."

"Huh?"

"Sure. We gave her credit for doing a good job. Willing, honest credit. No matter how she may profess to despise our opinion, she can't yell 'Liar' at us because that would mean that she thought that the praise meant nothing. She's got to agree with us, or deny that she did anything worthy. And she's been living in a world of her own, trying to prove that she is the stuff. So--get me?"

"Uh-huh, I suppose so. How're you set?"

"Pretty good. We've swiped all of your spare alphatrons and a couple more gravitic generators, and we'll butter the job up a little so that we won't worry about over-loading the alphatrons. That'll take us an hour or so. How're you doing?"

"I dunno. Doc said wait here--and dammit, I'm running out of fingernails, cigarettes, and patience."

"Well hang tight. I'll be back from time to time to see how you're getting along--Hi, Doc? What's the good word?"

"It's good," sighed Dr. Caldwell.

"Honest?" yelled McBride. "Enid's O.K.?"

"Fine. From here on in it's a breeze. Oh, I forgot to tell you. She's had her son."

"She's what?" yelled McBride.

"Son. John McBride Junior, I presume. He's an ugly, carrot-colored, monkey-faced, repulsively wrinkled little monster, but Enid says he's the image of the old man."

McBride looked at Caldwell, and then rushed out to Enid's room.

"Image of the old man, hey?" asked Hammond.

"He'll develop," said Dr. Caldwell. "Junior is a Latent Image!"

THE END.