Abruptly his words rang loud: “I propose we go on to the next cycle of me cosmos.”

That snatched them to attention. Above a collective gasp and inarticulate cries, a few stridencies could be made out: “—No! Lunacy!” — “Great!” — “Impossible!” — “Blasphemy!” Reymont drew his gun and fired. The shot shocked them into quiet.

He grinned. “Blank cartridge,” he said. “Better than a gavel. Naturally, I discussed this beforehand with the officers and the astronomical experts. The officers, at least, agree the gamble is worth taking, if only because we haven’t much to lose. But equally naturally, we want general accord. Let’s discuss this in regular fashion. Captain Telander, will you preside?”

“No,” said the master faintly. “You. Please.”

“Very well. Comments… ah, probably our senior physicist should begin.”

Ben-Zvi declared, in an almost indignant voice: “The universe took between one and two hundred billion years to complete its expansion. It won’t collapse in less time. Do you seriously believe we can acquire a tau that lets us outlive the cycle?”

“I seriously believe we should try,” Reymont answered. The ship trembled and belled. “We gained a few per cent right there, in that galactic cluster. As matter gets more dense, we accelerate faster. Space itself is being pulled into a tighter and tighter curve. We couldn’t circumnavigate the universe before, because it didn’t last that long, in me form we knew it. But we should be able to circle the shrinking universe repeatedly. That’s the opinion of Professor Chidambaran. Would you like to explain, Mohandas?”

“If you wish,” the cosmologist said. “Time as well as space must be taken into reckoning. The characteristics of the whole continuum will change quite radically. Conservative assumptions lead me to the conclusion that, in effect, our present exponential decrease of the tau factor with respect to ship’s time, should itself increase to a higher order.” He paused. “At a rough estimate, I would say that the time we experience under those circumstances, from now to the ultimate collapse, will be three months.”

Into the hush that followed another rustle of stupefaction, he added: “Nevertheless, as I told the officers when they asked me to make this calculation, I do not see how we can survive. Our present observations vindicate the empirical proofs that Elof Nilsson found, these many eons ago in the Solar System, that the universe does indeed oscillate. It will be reborn. But first all matter and energy must be collected in a monobloc of the highest possible density and temperature. We might pass through a star at our current velocity and not be harmed. We can scarcely pass through the primordial nucleon. My personal suggestion is that we cultivate serenity.” He folded his hands in his lap.

“Not a bad idea,” Reymont said. “But I don’t think that’s the sole thing we should do. We should keep flying also. Let me tell you what I told the original discussion group. Nobody disputed it.

“The fact is, nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen. My guess is that everything will not get squeezed into a single zero-point Something. That’s the kind of oversimplification which helps our math along but never does tell a whole story. I think the central core of mass is bound to have an enormous hydrogen envelope, even before the explosion. The outer parts of that envelope may not be too hot or radiant or dense for us. Space will be small enough, though, that we can circle around and around the monobloc as a kind of satellite. When it blows up and space starts to expand again, we’ll spiral out ourselves. I know this is a sloppy way of phrasing, but it hints at what we can perhaps do… Norbert?”