The
other parties would be more anxious.
So the astrogation-conference did not deal with a direct return to
Earth, but with a small sol-type star not too far out of the direct
line. The Pole Star could have been visited, but it was a double star.
Cochrane had no abstract scientific curiosity. His approach was strictly
that of a man of business. He did the business.
There was, of course, a suitable pause not too far from the second
planet--the planet of the shaggy beasts. They put out a plastic balloon
with a Dabney field generator inside it. It would float in emptiness
indefinitely. The field would hold for not less than twenty years. It
would serve as a beacon, a highway, a railroad track through space for
other ships planning to visit the third world now available to men.
Ultimately, better arrangements could be made.
Jones was already ecstatically designing ground-level Dabney field
installations. There would be Dabney fields extending from star to star.
Along them, as along pneumatic tubes, ships would travel at unthinkable
speeds toward absolutely certain destinations. True, at times they could
not be used because of the bulk of planets between starting-points and
landing-stations.
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