“Suppose, however, we decided to turn back at this instant. We would first have to decelerate, spending fuel to kill an outward velocity which the sun would otherwise have killed for us. Then we must accelerate inward. We can just barely afford the fuel. There will be little left for maneuvers. And…we’ll be cutting almost perpendicularly across the asteroidal orbits. Their full density and velocity will be directed almost broadside to us.

“Oh, we still needn’t worry about being struck by a large object. The probability of that is quite low. But what we will get is the fifteen kilometer-per-second sandblast of the uncountable small particles. I have been computing the results of my investigations so far, and arrive at a figure for the density of this cosmic sand which is, well, simply appalling. Far more than was hitherto suspected. I don’t believe our hull can stand such a prolonged scouring, meteor bumpers or no.”

“Are you certain?” gulped Helledahl.

“Of course not,” said Winge testily. “What is certain, out here? I believe it highly probably, though. And the fact that the Chinese never came back would seem to lend credence to my hypothesis.”

* * *

The barnacles had advanced astoundingly since Bull last looked at them. Soon the entire ship would be covered, except for a few crucial places toilfully kept clean.

He braced his armored self against the reactive push of his cutting torch. It was about the only way to get a full-grown barnacle loose. The things melded themselves with the hull. The flame drowned the sardonic stars in his vision but illuminated the growths.

They looked quite a bit like the Terrestrial marine sort. Each humped up in a hard conoidal shell of blackish-brown material. Beneath them was a layer of excreted metal, chiefly ferrous, plated onto the aluminum hull.

I’d hate to try landing through an atmosphere, thought Bull. Of course, that wouldn’t be necessary. We would go into orbit around Earth and call for someone to lay alongside and take us off…But heading back sunward, we’ll have one sweet time controlling internal temperature…No, I can simply slap some shiny paint on. That should do the trick. I’d have to paint anyway, to maintain constant radiation characteristics when micrometeorites are forever scratching our metal. Another chore. Space flight is nothing but one long round of chores. The next poet who recites in my presence an ode to man’s conquest of the universe can take that universe—every galaxy and every supernova through every last, long light-year—and put…

If we get home alive.

He tossed the barnacle into a metal canister for later study. It was still red hot, and doubtless the marvelously intricate organism within the shell had suffered damage. But the details of the lithophagic metabolism could be left for professional biologists to figure out. All they wanted aboard Holy Ole was enough knowledge to base a decision on.

Before taking more specimens, Bull made a circuit of the hull. There were many hummocks on it, barnacles growing upon barnacles. The foresection had turned into a hill of shells, under which the radio transceiver boom lay buried. Another could be built when required for Earth approach. The trouble was, with the interior radiation still mounting—while a hasty retreat seemed impossible—Bull had started to doubt he ever would see Earth again.