Part 2

They reached the control room door, battered at it. Half a dozen men came up with a great post of metal, heaved. The door shuddered. Again. Again. It crashed in.

Lindquist and Larkin stood there, over a great pile of charts and books. "You won't take this ship on to Centauri," Larkin yelled.

A little flame flickered at the end of the tube in his hand. He crouched.

"If those are the astrogation charts--" said Striker.

Eric dove, caught Larkin's midsection with his shoulder, threw the man back. They struggled on the floor, and dimly Eric was aware of others who held the writhing Lindquist. Larkin fought like a snake, twisting, turning, gouging.

Eric, out of the corner of his eye, saw Lindquist breaking loose, watched him running with the brand to the pile of charts. A shot crashed through the room, echoing hollowly. Lindquist fell over his charts.

Now Eric had Larkin down, was pinning him, felt the man's hands twisting, clawing at his stomach, saw them come away with his gun. They grappled, and Eric cursed himself for forgetting the gun. Larkin held it, laughed, squeezed the trigger as Eric pushed clear.

Then the laughter faded as Larkin stared stupidly at the gun he had not known how to use. Larkin gasped once, held both hands to the growing red stain on his middle.

* * * * *

"Dead," Richardson said later. "They're both dead. You know, I think it's better this way. They would have been trouble. But now--now all we have to do is find the course again, turn the ship around--"

"It'll mean two extra generations in space," Chambers said. "They've been heading back for Earth twenty-five years."

With Eric, he studied the charts, assembled them, punched a few buttons on the computing machine. "Like this," Eric said. He twirled a few dials. "It takes a long time with the overdrive, but we'll be back on course in three years."

For a while he gazed out the port, fascinated by the huge sweep of the Milky Way, clear and beautiful in the black sky. When he turned back and away from it, Laurie stood beside him.

"Hello, Lazarus."

"Very funny," he said. "Call me Taine--better still, call me Eric."

"Eric, then. Hello, Eric."

He grinned. "I guess you're not psychotic, after all."

"Nope. Normal as can be. But take my great-great-grandmother, now. She was really neurotic. She married, all right, but they say she really carried a torch all her life."

There was laughter in the girl's eyes as she spoke. Eric had seen other eyes like that. So familiar. So beautiful.

"I am Laurie Simmons," the girl told him. "My great-great-grandfather's name was Lou Simmons. His wife was Clair. My mother has a book of hers, of poems she wrote to Eric."

"Tell me about them, Laurie." A lovely girl; as pretty as her great-great-grandmother. No--prettier--and part of today. "Never mind, Laurie. Just tell me about yourself."

He knew Clair would like it this way.