they may discover that. My life might be no longer safe, and I have a great affection for my life. Even on a thin and remote possibility such as that, I would rather play safe. So no one knows of Tazenda but you, and you found out only after we were out in space. And even so, there is the question of the crew.’ Channis was smiling again, ironically, in obviously complete control of the situation.
Pritcher’s hand fell away from his blaster, and for a moment a vague discomfort pierced him. What kept him from action? What deadened him? There was a time when he was a rebellious and unpromoted captain of the First Foundation’s commercial empire, when it would have been himself rather than Channis who would have taken prompt and daring action such as that. Was the Mule right? Was his controlled mind so concerned with obedience as to lose initiative? He felt a thickening despondency drive him down into a strange lassitude.
He said, ‘Well done! However, you will consult me in the future before making decisions of this nature.’
The flickering signal caught his attention.
‘That’s the engine room,’ said Channis, casually. ‘They warmed up on five minutes’ notice and I asked them to let me know if there was any trouble. Want to hold the fort?’
Pritcher nodded mutely, and cogitated in the sudden loneliness on the evils of approaching fifty. The visiplate was sparsely starred. The main body of the Galaxy misted one end. What if he were free of the Mule’s influence—
But he recoiled in horror at the thought.
Chief Engineer Huxlani looked sharply at the young, ununiformed man who carried himself with the assurance of a Fleet officer and seemed to be in a position of authority. Huxlani, as a regular Fleet man from the days his chin had dripped milk, generally confused authority with specific insignia.
But the Mule had appointed this man, and the Mule was, of course, the last word. The only word for that matter. Not even sub-consciously did he question that. Emotional control went deep.
He handed Channis the little oval object without a word.
Channis lifted it, and smiled engagingly.
‘You’re a Foundation man, aren’t you, chief?’
‘Yes, sir. I served in the Foundation Fleet eighteen years before the First Citizen took over.’
‘Foundation training in engineering?’
‘Qualified Technician, First Class – Central School on Anacreon.’
‘Good enough. And you found this on the communication circuit, where I asked you to look?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Does it belong there?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘A hypertracer, sir.’
‘That’s not enough. I’m not a Foundation man. What is it?’
‘It’s a device to allow the ship to be traced through hyperspace.’
‘In other words we can be followed anywhere.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘All right. It’s a recent invention, isn’t it? It was developed by one of the Research Institutes set up by the First Citizen, wasn’t it?’
‘I believe so, sir.’
‘And its workings are a government secret. Right?’
‘I believe so, sir.’
‘Yet here it is. Intriguing.’
Channis tossed the hypertracer methodically from hand to hand for a few seconds. Then, sharply, he held it out, ‘Take it, then, and put it back exactly where you found it and exactly how you found it. Understand? And then forget this incident. Entirely!’
The chief choked down his near-automatic salute, turned sharply and left.
The ship bounded through the Galaxy, its path a wide-spaced dotted line through the stars. The dots, referred to, were the scant stretches of ten to sixty light-seconds spent in normal space and between them stretched the hundred-and-up light-year gaps that represented the ‘hops’ through hyperspace.
Bail Channis sat at the control panel of the Lens and felt again the involuntary surge of near-worship at the contemplation of it. He was not a Foundation man and the interplay of forces at the twist of a knob or the breaking of a contact was not second nature to him.
Not that the Lens ought quite to bore even a Foundation man. Within its unbelievably compact body were enough electronic circuits to pinpoint accurately a hundred million separate stars in exact relationship to each other. And as if that were not a feat in itself, it was further capable of translating any given portion of the Galactic Field along any of the three spatial axes or to rotate any portion of the Field about a centre.
It was because of that, that the Lens had performed a near-revolution in interstellar travel. In the younger days of interstellar travel, the calculation of each ‘hop’ through hyperspace meant any amount of work from a day to a week – and the larger portion of such work was the more or less precise calculation of ‘Ship’s Position’ on the Galactic scale of reference. Essentially that meant the accurate observation of at least three widely-spaced stars, the position of which, with reference to the arbitrary Galactic triple-zero, were known.
And it is the word ‘known,’ that is the catch. To any who know the star field well from one certain reference point, stars are as individual as people. Jump ten parsecs, however, and not even your own sun is recognizable. It may not even be visible.
The answer was, of course, spectroscopic analysis. For centuries, the main object of interstellar engineering was the analysis of the ‘light signature’ of more and more stars in greater and greater detail. With this, and the growing precision of the ‘hop,’ itself, standard routes of travel through the Galaxy were adopted and interstellar travel became less of an art and more of a science.
And yet, even under the Foundation with improved calculating machines and a new method of mechanically scanning the star field for a known ‘light signature,’ it sometimes took days to locate three stars and then calculate positions in regions not previously familiar to the pilot.
It was the Lens that changed all that. For one thing it required only a single known star. For another, even a space tyro such as Channis could operate it.
The nearest sizeable star at the moment was Vincetori, according to ‘hop’ calculations, and on the visiplate now, a bright star was centred. Channis hoped that it was Vincetori.
The field screen of the Lens was thrown directly next that of the visiplate and with careful fingers, Channis punched out the co-ordinates of Vincetori. He closed a relay, and the star field sprang to bright view. In it, too, a bright star was centred, but otherwise there seemed no relationship. He adjusted the Lens along the Z-axis and expanded the Field to where the photometer showed both centred stars to be of equal brightness.
Channis looked for a second star, sizeably bright, on the visiplate and found one on the field screen to correspond. Slowly,
