“You can distinguish thatmuch detail already?” Reymont wondered; “Boudreau couldn’t.”

“I told you I have new equipment, with its balkiness now tinkered out,” Nilsson said. “You recollect that after Ingrid gave me some special lessons, I became able to work in free fall with a degree of efficiency. The precision of my data seems even more than hoped for when, ah, we instigated the project. Yes, I have a reasonably accurate map of that part of the clan which we might traverse. On such basis, I have calculated what options are open to us.”

“Get to the point. God damn you!” Reymont yelled. At once he curbed himself, inhaled, and said: “Apologies. I’m a little overwrought. Please go on. Once we get in where the jets have a decent amount of matter to work on, why can’t we brake?”

“We can,” Nilsson replied quickly. “Certainly we can. But our inverse tau is immense. Remember, we acquired it by passing through the densest attainable portions of several galaxies, en route to interclan space. It was necessary. I don’t dispute the wisdom of the decision. Nevertheless, the result is that we are limited in what paths we can take that intersect the space occupied by this clan. The paths form a rather narrow conoidal volume, as you might guess.”

Reymont gnawed his lip. “And it turns out there doesn’t happen to be enough matter in that cone.”

“Correct.” Nilsson’s head bobbed. “Among other things, the difference in velocity between us and these galaxies, due to the expansion of space, reduces the effectiveness of our Bussard engine more than it reduces the amount of deceleration required.”

His professorial manner was returning to him: “At best, we will emerge on the other side of the clan— after an estimated six months of ship’s time under deceleration, mind you— with a tau that remains on the order of ten to the minus third or fourth power. No further important change of velocity can be made in the space beyond, interclan space. Hence it would be impossible for us to reach another clan— given that high a value of tau— before we die of old age.”

The pompous voice cut off, the beady eyes looked expectant. Reymont met them rather than Telander’s sick, gutted stare. “Why am I being told this, and not Lindgren?” he asked.

A tenderness made Nilsson, briefly, another man. “She works cruelly hard. What can she do here? I thought I had best let her sleep.”

“Well, what can I do?”

“Give me… us… your advice,” Telander said.

“But sir, you’re the captain!”

“We have been over this ground before, Carl. I can, well, yes, I suppose I can make the decisions, issue the commands, order the routines, which will take us crashing on through space.” Telander extended his hands. They trembled like autumn leaves. “More than that I can no longer do, Carl. I have not the strength left. You must tell our shipmates.”

“Tell them we’ve failed?” Reymont grated. “Tell them, in spite of everything we did, we’re damned to fly on till we go crazy and die? You don’t want much of me, do you, Captain?”