"Later. Received clearance for takeoff suddenly, and the whole flight was away in minutes. Didn't delay in planetary orbit at all—still not very healthy—so set course at once. Two ships reported lost on the way up. Koriel is taking bets on how many ships from our flight touch down on Luna. We're flying inside a tight defense screen but must stand out clearly on Lambian search radars. There's a bit about Koriel flirting with one of the girls from a signals unit—quite a character, this Koriel, wasn't he . . . ? More war news received en route . . . Now—this is the part I meant." Hunt found the entry with his finger.

"Day Eight. In Lunar orbit at last!" He laid the sheet down on the table and looked from one linguist to the other. "'In Lunar orbit at last.' Now, you tell me: Exactly how did that ship travel from Minerva to our Moon in under two of our days? Either there is some form of propulsion that UNSA ought to be finding out about, or we've been very wrong about Lunarian technology all along. But it doesn't fit. If they could do that, they didn't have any problem about developing space flight; they were way ahead of us. But I don't believe it—everything says they had a problem."

Maddson made a show of helplessness. He knew it was crazy. Hunt looked inquiringly at Maddson's assistant, who merely shrugged and pulled a face.

"You're sure he means Lunar orbit—our Moon?"

"We're sure." Maddson was sure.

"And there's no doubt about the date he shipped out?" Hunt persisted.

"The embarkation date is stamped in the pay book, and it checks with the date of the entry that says he shipped out. And don't forget the wording on Day—where was it?—here, Day Seven. 'Embarked four hours ago as scheduled'—See, 'as scheduled.' No suggestion of a change in timetable."

"And how certain is the date he reached Luna?" asked Hunt.

"Well that's a little more difficult. Just going by the dates of the notes, they're one Lunarian day apart, all right. Now, it's possible that he used a Minervan time scale on Minerva, but switched to some local system when he got to Luna. If so, it's a big coincidence that they tally like they do, but"—he shrugged—"it's possible. The thing that bothers me about that idea, though, is the absence of any entries between the shipout date and the arrival-at-Luna date. Charlie seems to have written his diary regularly. If the voyage took months, like you're saying it should have, it looks funny to me that there's nothing at all between those dates. It's not as if he'd been short of free time."

Hunt reflected for a few moments on these possibilities. Then he said, "There's worse to come. Let's press on for now." He picked up the notes and resumed: