“Give me your hand,” said Noxon to Ram Odin. Noxon scooped up the box of mice, tucking it against his body. “By the way,” Noxon asked the expendable, “why did you happen to have an empty box lying around?”

“This is a colony ship,” said the expendable. “We have hundreds of containers of various sizes for the use of the colonists.”

“They can’t chew through this, can they?” asked Noxon.

“It would break their little teeth,” said the expendable.

“Then by all means,” said Noxon to the mice, “go ahead and give it a try.”

“I’ve seen people talk to their pets before,” said Ram Odin, “but you’re the first person who actually got answers.”

“Not this time,” said Noxon. “I think they’re pouting.”

“They had a near-death experience,” said Ram Odin. “I think I know just how low our friend here took the oxygen level. They were desperate for air.”

“As we will be,” said Noxon, “if I can’t take the ship with us back to regular time.”

“Cheer up,” said Ram Odin. “You probably won’t be able to find regular time, so it’s a moot question. But let’s get close to Earth and see.”

Noxon turned to the expendable. “We’ll be moving very quickly. What should I look at to know when we’re nearing the gravity well of Earth, but are still outside it?”

“Gravity goes on forever,” said the expendable. “The Earth is already exerting a faint but noticeable tug on this ship. What threshold am I looking for?”

“I don’t know,” said Noxon.

“When we come within the average orbital distance of Pluto,” said Ram Odin.

“I didn’t even think about the outer planets,” said Noxon. “What if one of them captures our timeflow?”

“We don’t come in through the plane of the ecliptic. Our course brings us toward Earth from the North Pole. Or rather toward L5, a point balanced between the gravity wells of Earth and the Moon.”

“No,” said Noxon. “I don’t think this will work if we’re at such a point of balance.”

“As we approach,” said Ram Odin reassuringly, “Earth will have a much stronger pull on us than the Moon, until right before we arrive at the point where this ship was built.”

Noxon thought of something else. “Do you have any control over this ship?” he asked.

The expendable cocked his head. “The other computers and I are the ship.”

“No. I mean . . . can you make the ship go where you want?”

“I haven’t tried to change it,” said the expendable.

“We’re facing the wrong way,” said Ram Odin. “If we could deploy our ram scoop it would still be behind us. So we’re not capable of gathering fuel. The engines seem to be running, but I don’t know how.”