The Albatross

It was a six-course meal—not counting the trimmings. Wine carts rolled noiselessly up and down the glass aisles. Spot-lights illuminated the tables from above: lemon-yellow for the turtle soup, bluish-white for the fish dish, the roast chicken entree being bathed in a rosy-pink, tinged with a warm, silky gray. Fortunately, there was no dimming of the lights with the espresso—because Pirx’s mood was somber enough as it was. The dinner had sapped all his energy. He swore that from now on he’d stick to the snack bar on the lower deck. Too swanky in here for his taste, too much time spent worrying about his elbows. And what a fashion show!

A sunken dining room, with the floor half a flight below level and a circular landing: an enormous, creamish-gold plate, arrayed with the world’s most sumptuous appetizers. The rustling of stiff, semitransparent gowns at his back. A gay and festive crowd. Live dance music… and live waiters, each decked out like a philharmonic conductor. “The Transgalactic offers you nonautomated service, cordial and intimate surroundings, genuinely human hospitality, and a completely live crew, each a master of his trade…”

Over coffee and a cigarette, Pirx tried to find a corner, some quiet place of refuge, to rest his eyes. A woman seated at a nearby table caught his fancy. Her neckline was shaded by a flat but rough stone. Not chrysoprase or chalcedony—most likely a souvenir from Mars. Must have cost a fortune, he thought, even though it looked like little more than a chunk of asphalt. Women shouldn’t have so much money.

He wasn’t overwhelmed. And he wasn’t appalled—just observant. Gradually he felt an urge to stretch his limbs. A stroll on the promenade deck, maybe?

He got up from the table, made a slight bow, and left the dining room. As he passed between some reflecting polygonal columns, he caught a glimpse of himself: a button was showing beneath the knot in his tie. Honestly, nobody wore these kinds of neckties anymore! In the corridor he paused to straighten his collar, stepped into the elevator, and zoomed up to the prom deck. The elevator door slid open without a sound. A sigh of relief: not a living soul in sight. One third of the vaulted ceiling, its glassed roof arching over several rows of deck chairs, resembled a gigantic eye fixed on the stars. The chairs were stacked with blankets, but were otherwise quite empty. Only one was occupied, at the very back—by an elderly eccentric, bundled to the neck, whose habit it was to dine an hour after everyone else, alone, in an empty dining room, veiling his face with a napkin if anyone so much as glanced in his direction.

Pirx settled himself in one of the chairs. Intermittently the deck was fanned by an undulating breeze that seemed to have its origin in the darkest recesses of space but was, in fact, pumped out by the ship’s invisible air-conditioning outlets. The engineers on the Transgalactic staff knew their stuff, all right. The deck chair was comfortable, more comfortable even than a pilot’s electronically designed contour couch. Pirx felt a slight chill, remembered the blankets, and bundled himself up as if making himself snug in a comforter.

Someone was coming. By way of the stairs—not the elevator. His dining-room neighbor. He tried to guess her age—no luck. She had on another dress, and he wondered whether it was the same woman. She stretched herself out, three chairs away from him, and opened a book. The artificial breeze ruffled the pages. Pirx looked straight ahead. The Southern Cross was palpably visible, as was the tail end of the Little Dipper, truncated by the window frame: a luminous speck against a black backdrop. A seven-day flight cruise. Hm. A lot could happen in a week’s time. He stirred deliberately, causing the thickish, neatly folded document in his inner pocket to crinkle softly. A surge of contentment: waiting for him on the other end was a second navigator’s berth. He knew his itinerary—the plane ride from North Land to Eurasia, then on to India. In his voucher were enough tickets to make a book, each blank a different color and in duplicate, stubs, coupons, gold trim—indeed, everything that belonged to the Transgalactic’s package deal fairly oozed with gold and silver. The woman sitting three chairs away from him was good-looking, very good-looking. The same, all right. Should he strike up a conversation? Introduce himself, at least? What a drag having such a short name—a name that was almost over before it began. And then, “Pirx” often came out sounding like something else. Talking on the telephone was the worst. Come on, say something. Fine, but what?!

He felt enervated again. From Mars the cruise had looked altogether different. Luckily for him, the shipowners on Earth were footing the bill—less out of generosity than for purely business reasons. He had logged nearly 3 billion kilometers, but this was his first trip on anything like a Titan. And what a far cry from a freighter! A rest mass of 180,000 tons; four main thrust reactors; a cruising speed of 65 kilometers per second; living accommodations for 1,200 passengers, with a choice of singles, doubles, or suites, all with private bath; guaranteed stable gravitation except during takeoff and landing; maximum safety conditions; all the modern conveniences; a 40-man crew, plus a staff of 260. Ceramite, steel, gold, palladium, chrome, nickel, iridium, plastic, Carrara marble, oak, mahogany, silver, crystal. Two swimming pools. Four movie theaters. Eighteen direct hookups with Earth—for the passengers alone! A concert hall. Six main decks, four promenade decks, automatic elevators, on-board booking on any ship in the fleet—a year in advance. Bars. Casinos. A department store. An artisans’ row—a true facsimile of an old-fashioned city lane, complete with wine cellars, gas lanterns, a moon, and a back-alley wall traversed by genuine back-alley cats. A greenhouse. And God knows what else. It would have taken a good month to make the grand tour, and then only one way!

The woman was still reading. Why do women have to dye their hair like that? That color was enough to turn… But on her it worked, somehow. Now, if he just had a cigarette in his hand, he thought, the right words would pop into his mouth automatically. He reached into his pocket.

The moment he whipped out the cigarette case—a present from Boman, which he kept out of friendship, never having owned one before in his life—it felt a little heavier than usual. Just a shade. But heavier it was. Was the ship accelerating, or what?

He strained his ears. Sure enough, the engines were pulling at greater thrust. An ordinary passenger might not have noticed; a series of four-ply insulating bulkheads separated the Titan’s engine room from the ship’s living quarters.

Singling out a pale star in one corner of the window frame, Pirx kept a watchful eye on it. If they’re accelerating, he thought, the star will stay put. But if it so much as jiggles…

It jiggled, drifting slowly, but ever so slowly, to one side.

It’s turning along its longitudinal axis, he reckoned.

The Titan was flying through a “cosmic tunnel,” unobstructed by any dust or meteorites—nothing but empty space. The pilot of the Titan, whose job it was to make sure the giant ship had clear passage, flew on ahead at a distance of 1,900 kilometers. The reason? For safety’s sake—even though, under the terms of an agreement negotiated by the United Astronavigation Association, the Transgalactic Line was granted undisputed right-of-way along its segment of the parabola. And ever since unmanned space probes were used to patrol thousands of transuranic sectors, making it possible for meteorite warnings to be issued as much as six hours in advance, the threat of any external hazards had been all but eliminated. The belt—those billion or so meteorites orbiting between Earth and Mars—was kept under special surveillance, whereas the remnants of any vehicles were bound to pass beyond the ecliptic plane. The progress achieved in this area, even since the time Pirx had been flying patrol, was staggering.

With no obstacles to avoid, the Titan had no reason to alter course. But veering off course it was—Pirx no longer had to verify it by the stars, he could feel it in his bones. So confident was he that he could easily have plotted the ship’s trajectory, knowing as he did its velocity, mass, and the rate of stellar displacement.

Something’s up, he thought.

There were no public announcements. Why all the secrecy? A layman when it came to the customs observed aboard luxury liners, he had enough savvy about engine rooms and cockpits to know there were only two courses of action: in the event of an emergency a ship could either maintain its previous velocity… or cut its engines. But the Titan was doing neither…

The whole maneuver lasted a total of four seconds. That meant a forty-five-degree turn. Hm.

The stars once again assumed a stationary position.

They were back on a straight course; yet the cigarette case in Pirx’s hand kept getting heavier.

Steering a straight course and gaining speed at the same time… That cinched it. For a moment he sat perfectly still, then rose to his feet, now feeling the effects of the increased gravitation. The gray-eyed beauty was watching his every move.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing to worry about, ma’am.”

“Something feels different. Do you notice it, too?”

“It’s nothing. Just a little increase in velocity.” Now was his chance to strike up a casual conversation. He gave her the once-over, no longer disturbed by the color of her hair. A real doll.

He shuffled off, leisurely at first, but with each step gradually quickening his pace. She must take me for a mental case, he thought. Colorful wall paintings ran the length of the deck. He passed through a door marked OFF LIMITS and headed down a long, deserted corridor, flooded with a bright electric glare. A row of numbered doors. He kept going, relying more on his sense of hearing. Some stairs brought him out on a landing, face-to-face with a metal door.

STELLAR PERSONNEL ONLY read the sign. Wow, nothing like having fancy names!

No doorknob—by special key only. Which key he lacked. He rubbed his nose in a moment of concentration.

Tap… tap… tatatap… tap… tap…

He waited. The door opened slightly, and a surly, ruddy-complexioned face showed in the crack.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m from Patrol.”

The door opened wide enough to admit him, and he entered what looked to be an auxiliary control room: double row of steering controls, video screens lining the opposite wall, facing which were several vacant chairs. A small, squat-looking unit was monitoring the pulsating dials. Standing on a narrow side table by the wall were some half-empty cups and saucers. The air was redolent of freshly brewed coffee, and of something that smelled vaguely like heated plastic laced with a whiff of ozone. Another door stood slightly ajar, emitting the purring drone of a transformer.

“An SOS?” he inquired of the man who had let him in. Stocky, with a slight swelling on one side of his face: a toothache kind of swelling; headset band creasing the hair; gray, partially unbuttoned Transgalactic uniform emblazoned with lightning insignia. Shirttail hanging out.

“Yes.” A moment’s hesitation. “From Patrol, you say?”

“From the Base. Just back from a two-year tour on the Transuran. I’m a navigator. Pirx is the name.”

A handshake.

“Mindell’s mine. Nucleonics.”

Without exchanging another word, the two moved into the adjoining room. It was the communications room. Very big. Ten or more people were huddled around the main transmitter. Two radiotelegraph operators, each equipped with earphones, wrote continuously against a background of clicking instruments, electrical humming, and an incessant, below-decks whine. Swarms of control lights on every wall: the place looked the inside of a trunk exchange. The two radiomen were almost prostrate over their desks; both in shirt sleeves, both with drenched faces—one pale, the other older and more average-looking, with a head scar plainly visible in the place where the headset band made a parting in his hair. Two men were seated a little distance away, one of whom Pirx recognized as the commander.

They were already mildly acquainted. The commander of the Titan was a short, grizzly-haired man with a small poker face. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, seemingly distracted by one of his shoe tips.

Pirx treaded softly up to the radiomen, craned his whole body, and began reading over the shoulder of the man with the head scar.

“… six-eighteen-point-three proceeding at full thrust time of arrival eight-zero-twelve. Out.”

The radioman slid a blank over with his left hand and kept on writing.

“Luna Base to Albatross-4 Aresluna. Check on-board contamination stop answer in Morse stop too far out of range for radio stop how many hours can you maintain emergency thrust stop estimated drift zero-six-point-twenty-one stop. Over.”

“Dasher-2 Aresterra to Luna Base. Am proceeding at full thrust destination Albatross sector sixty-four have overheated reactor but proceeding on course anyway stop am now six milliparsecs away from designated point of SOS. Out.”

The second operator, the more pallid-looking of the two, let out a muffled groan. Immediately everyone leaned over his shoulder. Mindell, the man who had met Pirx at the door, relayed the recorded messages back to the commander while the operator went on transcribing.

“Albatross-4 to all ships. Am lying in orbit, drift ellipsis T-341 sector sixty-five stop breach in hull widening stop leakage in stern bulkheads stop emergency thrust at 3g stop reactor going out of control stop multiple damages to main bulkhead stop third-degree on-board contamination and rising in response to emergency thrust stop will attempt to seal leaks am transferring crew to bow. Out.”

As he wrote, the operator’s hands trembled. One of the crew grabbed him by his shirt collar, yanked him to his feet, and rushed him out the door. A short while later he came back—alone—and took the other man’s place.

“He has a brother aboard the Albatross,” he said by way of explanation, addressing no one in particular.

Pirx peered over the older man’s shoulder.

“Luna Base to Albatross-4 Aresluna. The following ships have been dispatched stop Dasher from sector sixty-four Titan from sector sixty-seven Ballistic-8 from sector forty-four Sprite-702 from sector ninety-four stop seal breach in bulkhead stop wear pressure suits behind air locks stop report present course stop.”

“The Albatross!” exclaimed the young operator’s replacement, and everyone craned to read the message:

“Albatross-4 to all ships. Uncontrolled drifting stop leakage in hull stop losing atmosphere stop crew in pressure suits stop engine room flooded with coolant stop screens punctured stop temperature sixty-three degrees in control room stop initial breach in control room sealed stop coolant boiling stop main transmitter flooded stop switching over to radio stop we’ll be waiting for you fellows. Out.”

Practically everyone was smoking, the smoke curling upward in blue ribbons before being sucked out through the vents. Pirx was just rummaging through his pockets, likewise feeling the urge to light up, when someone—he couldn’t tell who—stuck an open pack into his hand. He lit up.

“Mr. Mindell,” said the commander, biting his lip. “Full thrust!”

Mindell registered some momentary astonishment but said nothing.

“Sound the alert?” asked the man seated next to the commander.

“This one’s mine.”

At that, he swung the mike around on its swivel arm and began speaking:

“Titan Aresterra to Albatross-4. We’re proceeding at full thrust. Presently crossing over into your sector. Arrival time one hour. Advise escaping through emergency hatch. We’ll be alongside you in one hour. Hang in there. Hang in there. Out.”

He pushed the mike away and stood up. Mindell was giving orders into the intercom on the other side of the room.

“Okay, gangfull thrust in five minutes.”

“Aye aye,” came the reply on the other end of the line.

The commander stepped out for a moment, his voice trailing in from the other room.

“Attention all passengers! Attention all passengers! I have an important announcement. Four minutes from now there will be a significant increase in the ship’s velocity. We’ve received a distress call and are responding with all due—”

Someone shut the door. Mindell gave Pirx a friendly nudge on the arm.

“Better brace yourself. We’ll be pushing 2g or better.”

Pirx nodded. By his standards 2g was a breeze, but now was not the time to flaunt his physical endurance. Dutifully, therefore, he gripped the armrest of the chair occupied by the older of the two radiomen.

“Albatross-4 to Titan. Won’t last another hour on board stop emergency hatch jammed by exploding bulkheads stop temperature eighty-one degrees in control room stop steaming up fast stop will try to escape by cutting through nose shield. Out.”

Mindell tore the slip of paper out of the operator’s hand and raced out of the room. As he was opening the door, the deck shook slightly and there was an immediate increase in everyone’s bodily weight.

The commander labored into the room, each step costing him obvious physical exertion, and plopped down into a chair. Someone handed him a mike on a cable. In his other hand was the last crumpled radiogram received from the Albatross. The skipper spread it out before him and studied it for a good long while.

“Titan Aresterra to Albatross-4,” he said at last. “We’ll be there in fifty minutes. Approaching on course eighty-four-point-fifteen stop eighty-one-point-two stop abandon ship. Abandon ship. We’ll find you. Hang in there. Out.”

The man sitting in for the younger operator, his tunic now unbuttoned, suddenly sprang to his feet and shot an urgent glance at the commander, who came over on the double. The operator yanked off his earphones, handed them to the skipper, who slipped them on over his head and listened while the other man adjusted the crackling loudspeaker. A split second later, everyone froze.

In that room were veterans of many years’ flight experience, but what they heard now was unprecedented. A voice—barely audible, accompanied by a protracted roar, as if trapped behind a wall of flame—was shouting:

“Albatross… every man… coolant in cockpit… temperature unbearable… crew standing by to the end… so long… all lines… out…”

The voice faded, being gradually overwhelmed by the roar in the background.

Then—only loudspeaker static. It took no small effort to keep on one’s feet—yet all remained standing, hunched over and braced against the metal bulkheads.

“Ballistic-8 to Luna Base,” a voice suddenly piped up, loud and clear. “Am proceeding to Albatross-4. Request clearance through sector sixty-seven. Proceeding at full thrust—will be impossible to carry out any passing maneuvers. Over.”

There was a pause lasting several seconds.

“Luna Base to all ships in sectors sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, ninety-six. All sectors closed. All ships not proceeding at full thrust for Albatross-4 are to stop immediately, place reactors on idling, and switch on navigation lights. Attention, Dasher! Attention, Titan Aresterra! Attention, Ballistic-8! Attention, Sprite-702! I’m giving you a clear field to Albatross-4. All traffic within radius vector of SOS has been halted. Commence braking one milliparsec in advance of SOS point. Be careful to extinguish braking rockets once you have Albatross on video—crew may already have abandoned ship. Good luck. Good luck. Out.”

Dasher was the first to respond—in Morse. Pirx listened closely to the bleeping signals.

“Dasher Aresterra to all rescue ships. Have entered Albatross’s sector. Will be joining her in eighteen minutes stop reactor overheated cooling system damaged stop will need medical assistance following rescue operation stop am commencing braking maneuver at full thrust. Out.”

“The guy’s nuts,” someone muttered, prompting those standing—until now so stock-still they looked more like statues—to search out the culprit with their eyes. An angry murmur passed through the men, then quickly subsided.

“Dasher will be there first,” said Mindell, casting a side glance at the commander, “and forty minutes from now she’ll be radioing for help herself—”

He broke off as a voice filtered through the loudspeaker static.

“Dasher Aresterra to all those answering Albatross’s distress call. I have her on the monitor. She’s drifting on a course approximating ellipsis T-348 and her tail is cherry-red. No trace of any signal lights. SOS ship does not respond. Am shutting down to commence rescue operation. Out.”

Buzzers sounded next door. Mindell and another crew member stepped out of the room. Pirx’s muscles were cable-tense. Gawd, how he’d like to have been out there! A moment later Mindell came back.

“What’s all the ruckus?” inquired the commander.

“The passengers would like to know when they can resume dancing.” Mindell’s reply went unnoticed by Pirx, whose eyes remained riveted to the loudspeaker.

“It won’t be long now,” answered the skipper, calmly and without inflection. “Switch on the monitor; we’re coming within range. In a couple of minutes we should have a sighting. Mr. Mindell, better sound the alert again—we’re about to brake down to overdrive.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Mindell replied, and he left the room.

A voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Luna Base to Titan Aresterra, Sprite-702! Attention! Attention! Attention! Ballistic-8 reports sighting a flash with a luminosity of minus four in the center of sector sixty-five. No response from Dasher or Albatross. Possibility of a reactor explosion aboard Albatross. For reasons of passenger safety, Titan Aresterra is instructed to stop and report immediately. Ballistic-8 and Sprite-702 are to proceed at their own discretion. I repeat: Titan Aresterra is instructed…”

All eyes were on the commander.

“Mr. Mindell, can we stop within a milliparsec?”

Mindell consulted his wristwatch.

“No, sir. We’re coming in on video. I’d need at least 6g’s.”

“If we changed course?”

“Even then we’d get only 3g’s,” Mindell said.

“Well, that settles it.”

The commander got up and strode over to the microphone.

“Titan Aresterra to Luna Base. Impossible to stop at present velocity. Am altering course with a roll maneuver at half-thrust. Abandoning sector sixty-five for sector sixty-six, on a course of two-hundred-and-two. Clearance requested. Over.”

“Stand by for confirmation,” he said, turning and addressing the man who had been seated next to him earlier. Mindell barked into the intercom, buzzers sounded, lights flickered on the wall panels, and the room seemed to grow darker—a case of “dimout,” caused by a draining of blood from the eyes. Pirx planted his feet squarely on the floor. They were braking and turning at the same time. There were mild vibrations, the long, shrill whine of laboring engines.

“Sit down, all of you!” the commander suddenly yelled. “I don’t need any heroes around here!”

Everyone sat—or rather flopped-down on the floor, which was padded with a thick layer of foam rubber.

“All hell’s gonna break loose down below,” muttered a man sprawled at Pirx’s elbow. The commander overheard him.

“The insurance company will pay for it,” he said from his Chair. The g-force was now three or better; Pirx could barely touch his face with his hand. By now all the passengers would be safe and sound in their cabins, he thought—but egads, what must it be like in the galleys and dining rooms! A whole shipload of broken china! And he could just see the greenhouse—what was left of it, that is!

“Ballistic-8 to all ships. I have the Albatross within scanner range. Hull completely clouded over, all except for stern, which is cherry-red. Am completing braking maneuver and sending out a search team to look for survivors. No response from Dasher. Out.”

The acceleration gradually lessened. Someone poked his head in through the door, permission was given to stand, and there was a quiet stampede to the door. Pirx was the last to enter the main control room. As in some movie theater for giants, the wall was taken up by a huge convex screen, measuring eight meters wide and sixteen meters tall. All lights were off in the control room. Against the black, star-studded background of space, in the left quadrant, lying somewhat below the Titan’s main axis, was the Albatross—a smoldering, incandescent sliver, its stern a glowing, fiery-red coal, not unlike the lit end of a cigarette. And this speck, this minute streak, formed the nucleus of a slightly flattened, diaphanous bubble, bristling with myriads of prickly, barb-like extensions—a cloud blister gradually dissolving into starlight. Suddenly there was a slight surge in the direction of the screen. Down at the very bottom, in the lower-right-hand corner, a luminous dot had begun to pulsate. The Dasher!

“Uncontrollable chain reaction aboard the Albatross stop have casualties stop severe burns stop request doctors stop transmitter damaged by explosion stop reactor leaking stop preparing to jettison reactor if unable to control leakage stop”—Pirx deciphered from the steadily blinking light.

The hull of the Albatross was no longer to be seen—only a blistery, yellowish, amber-colored clump suspended among the stars. The farther it drifted into the lower-left-hand corner, the more the Titan towered over it as it steered a new course out of the disaster-ridden sector.

The door to the radio room was ajar, allowing a shaft of light to penetrate the darkness within—along with the sound of a radio transmission.

“Ballistic-8 to Luna Base. Am parked in the central region of sector sixty-five. Dasher located milliparsec below me. Reports casualties and reactor leakage. Signals that she’s preparing to jettison reactor. Am answering her call for medical assistance. Search mission hampered by contamination caused by radioactive cloud with a surface temperature in excess of 1,200. Titan Aresterra in range, passing over me at full thrust and heading for sector sixty-six. Am waiting for arrival of Sprite-702 to launch joint rescue operation. Out.”

“To your stations, men!” someone boomed just as the lights at the back of the control room flickered on. There was a sudden flurry of activity, a scattering in several directions at once; Mindell stood by the control desk, giving orders; a number of buzzers went off at the same time… Before long the only ones left in the room were the commander, Mindell, and Pirx—and the young radiotelegraph operator, who stood alone in the corner, opposite the screen, and watched as the bubble gradually swelled and faded into the background.

“Oh, I didn’t recognize you,” said the commander, his hand extended in a handshake, as if just noticing Pirx for the first time. “Any word from the Sprite?” he inquired over Pirx’s shoulder of someone standing in the doorway.

“Yes, sir. She’s backing up.”

“Good.”

They lingered for a while longer, their eyes resting on the screen. The last trace of polluted cloud had evaporated, the screen once again filling with a raw and starry blackness.

“What do you think? Any survivors?” asked Pirx, assuming for some reason that the commander was more in the know than he was. A commander, after all, was supposed to know everything.

“Their deadlights must have jammed,” the skipper replied. He was at least a head shorter than Pirx, with hair the color of lead. Pirx couldn’t remember whether it had always been that gray.

“Mindell!” the commander called out, catching sight of his engineer passing by. “Lift the passenger alert, will you? They can go back to their dancing now.” Addressing the silent Pirx, he said, “Ever aboard the Albatross?”

“No.”

“A western company. Twenty-three thousand tons.” He was interrupted. “Yes? What is it?”

The radio operator handed him a message. Pirx could make out only the beginning: “Ballistic to…”

He stepped back out of the way. When he saw that he was still blocking traffic, he retreated into the corner and stood against the wall. Presently Mindell came barging in.

“Any news of the Dasher?” asked Pirx. Mindell was mopping his brow with a handkerchief, this man whom Pirx was beginning to feel he had known for years.

“A close shave,” said Mindell, trying to catch his breath. “Got hit by the blast, sprang a leak in the cooling system—that sonofabitch is always the first to blow. First- and second-degree burns. The medics are already there.”

“Ballistic’s team?”

“Yep.”

“Commander! Luna Base!” Someone called out from the door leading to the radio room, taking the commander away. Pirx stood facing Mindell, who pocketed his handkerchief and instinctively touched his swollen cheek.

Pirx could have gone on grilling him, but thinking better of it, gave him only a slight nod and ducked into the radio room. The loudspeaker was deluged with inquiries about the Albatross and the Dasher—from ships scattered in five different sectors. Finally, Luna Base had to silence everyone so it could go about unscrambling the snarl that had sprung up around sector 65 as a result of the recent ban on traffic.

The Titan’s commander could be seen sitting and writing at his desk. Suddenly the telegraph operator took off his earphones and shoved them to one side, as if they were no longer needed—at least that was how Pirx interpreted his gesture. He was on the verge of asking about the crew of the Albatross, whether anyone had managed to escape, when the operator, sensing that someone was standing behind him, raised his head and looked him straight in the eye. Without saying another word, Pirx took his leave, through the door marked STELLAR PERSONNEL ONLY.