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ignored the button which would have brought Wenek's voice to him. However, he felt that he needed
something to divert himself. Or something even stronger than a diversion, something which would put his
grief and problems in a different perspective. He needed immensity, awe and wonder to make him shrink.
He reached under the seat and took from the rack a helmet-shaped device with a snap-down
visor. After placing it on his head, he moved the visor down over his face. Immediately, he heard the
voice of an officer of theWhite Mule.
... Provided individually so that your fellow passengers won't have to view this if they don't wish
to. Some people, encountering this for the first time, are thrown into a state of shock or hysteria. The
curved inner side of the visor leaped into solid life. Carmody could see the spaceport outside, the white,
mural-decorated build-ings gleaming in the bright mid-afternoon sun, the people looking out of the
windows of the port buildings at theWhite Mule.
A dozen spaceships take off every day from this port. But the spectacle, unspectacular as it is,
continues to attract hundreds, even thousands of sightseers every day on every planet of the Federation.
And on every non-Federation planet, too, for sentients are just as curious as Terrestrials. Even
much-traveled passengers, the port employees, and the crews of other ships do not become accustomed
to this seemingly magical trick.
Carmody drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, for he had heard similar speeches many
times. At once, a voice cut in: Are you all right, sir?
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Carmody said, Huh? Then he chuckled. I'm OK. I was just a little impatient with the lecture. I've
made over a hundred jumps.
Very well, sir. Sorry to have bothered you.
He made an effort to calm himself, and settled back to watch the scene on the visor.
The first voice returned. . . .three, two, one, zero!
Carmody, knowing what was coming, refrained from blinking. The port was gone. The planet of
Wildenwooly and the brightness of its sun were gone. Cups of burning wine hung on a black table: red,
green, white, blue, violet. The one-eyed beasts of the jungle of space glared.
. . . approximately 50,000 light-years away in quote nothing flat unquote. The Earth-sized planet
you were just on is too far away to be seen, and its sun is only one of the millions of stars scattered
prodigally through the universe around you, 'the eternally sparked thoughts in God's mind,' to quote the
great poet Gianelli.
Just a moment. Our ship is turning now to align herself for the next jump. The protein computer
which I briefly described a mo-ment ago is comparing the angles of light from a dozen identifiable stars,
each of which radiates its unique complex of spectral colors and each of which has a known spatial
relation to the other. After the quote artificial brain unquote of the computer ascertains our loca-tion, it
will point the ship for the next jump.
Fine horizontal and vertical lines appeared on the visor before Carmody.
Each square of the grid is numbered for your convenience. Square 15, near the center, will
contain the luminary of Wilden-wooly in a few seconds. It is now in No. 16, drifting at a 45-degree angle
across it. Watch it, ladies and gentlemen. It is now becoming brighter, not because it is getting closer but
because we have amplified its light for your easier identification.
A yellow spark passed beneath a larger but ghostly pale blue one, then entered the corner of
square fifteen. It slipped across the grid line, stopped in the middle, and bobbed up to the center.
Carmody remembered the first time he had seen this happen, so many years ago. Then he had
felt a definite pain in his belly, as if his umbilical cord had been reattached, only to be savagely ripped out
and to go trailing away from him through space. He had been lost, lost as never before in his life.
The location of Wildenwooly's sun relative to the other point-stars has been determined and
stored by the computer. The ship was ready several million microseconds ago to hurl itself on its next
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