“You’re the one who’s concealing facts. Captain. You’re pretty badly shaken by what we’re driving into. I suspect our chances are not quite as good as you pretended. Right?”

Telander looked around and did not reply until they were alone in the stairwell. He lowered his voice. “I simply don’t know. Nor does Fedoroff. No Bussard ship has been tested under conditions like those ahead of us. Obviously! We’ll either get by in reasonable shape or we’ll die. In the latter case, I don’t imagine it’ll be from radiation sickness. If any of that material penetrates the screens and hits us, it should wipe us out, a quick clean death. I saw no reason to make worse what hours remain for our people, by dwelling on that possibility.”

Reymont scowled. “You overlook a third chance. We may survive, but in bad shape.”

“How the devil could we?”

“Hard to say. Perhaps we’ll take such a buffeting that personnel are killed. Key personnel, whom we can ill afford to lose… not that fifty is any great number.” Reymont brooded. Footsteps thudded in the mumble of energies. “They reacted well, on the whole,” he said. “They were picked for courage and coolness, along with health and intelligence. In a few instances, the picking may not have been entirely successful. Suppose we do find ourselves, let’s say, disabled. What next? How long will morale last, or sanity itself? I want to be ready to maintain discipline.”

“In that connection,” Telander responded, cold once more, “please remember that you act under my orders and subject to the articles of the expedition.”

“Damnation!” Reymont exploded. “What do you take me for? A would-be Mao? I’m requesting your authorization to deputize certain trustworthy men and prepare them quietly for emergencies. I’ll issue them weapons, stunner type only. If nothing goes wrong— or if something does but everybody behaves himself— what have we lost?”

“Mutual trust,” the captain said.

They had come to the bridge. Reymont entered with his companion, arguing further. Telander made a hacking gesture to shut him up and strode toward the control console. “Anything new?” he asked.

“Yes. The instruments have begun to draw a density map,” Lindgren answered. She had flinched on seeing Reymont and spoke mechanically, not looking at him. “It is recommended—” She pointed to the screens and the latest printout.

Telander studied them. “Hm. We can pass through a slightly less thick region of the nebula, it seems, if we generate a lateral vector by activating the Number Three and Four decelerators in conjunction with the entire accelerator system… A procedure with hazards of its own. This calls for discussion.” He flipped the intercom controls and spoke briefly to Fedoroff and Boudreau. “In the plotting room. On the double!”

He turned to go. “Captain—” Reymont attempted.

“Not now,” Telander said. His legs scissored across the deck.

“But—”

“The answer is no.” Telander vanished out the door.

Reymont stood where he was, head lowered and shoulders hunched as if to charge. But he had nowhere to go. Ingrid Lindgren regarded him for a time that shivered— a minute or more, ship’s chronology, which was a quarter hour in the lives of the stars and planets— before she said, very softly, “What did you want of him?”