It's
transmitting voice and pictures now. Now we set up a television show
which pays for our astrogation and lets the world sit in on the prettier
aspects of our travels. Hm.... How long before you can sit down on a
planet, after you have all the navigational aids of--say--the four best
observatories on Earth to help you? I'll arrange for a sponsor--."
He went happily down the stairs again. This was a spiral stair, and he
zestfully spun around it as he went to the next deck below. At the
bottom he called up to Babs:
"Babs! Get Bell and Alicia Keith and come along to take dictation! I'm
going to need some legal witnesses for the biggest deal in the history
of advertising, made at several times the speed of light!"
And he went zestfully to the communicator to set it up.
And time passed. Data arrived, which at once solved Jones' and the
pilot's problem of where they were and how far they had come--it was,
actually, 178.3 light-years--and they spent an hour making further tests
and getting further determinations, and then they got a destination.
They stopped in space to extrude from the airlock a small package which
expanded into a forty-foot plastic balloon with a minute atomic battery
attached to it.
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