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The screen convulsed again; when it cleared the third planet was directly in the center; its small moon, looking almost as large, was a little above and to the right, sunlit on one side and planetlit on the other. Kirbey locked the red handle, gathered up his tobacco and lighter and things from the ledge, and pulled down the cover of the instrument-console, locking it.
It was sure that he had gone to Agni and then Imhotep. Guatt Kirbey tried to figure both courses. "It doesn't tell us anything, either way," he said at length. "Chermosh is away off to the side from Agni and Imhotep in either case." "Well, he does have a base, somewhere, and it's not on any Terra-type planet," Valkanhayn said.
Vann Larch, guns-and-missiles, who was also a painter; Guatt Kirbey, sour and pessimistic, the hyperspatial astrogator who tried to express his science in music; Sharll Renner, the normal-space astrogator. Alvyn Karffard, the exec, who had been with Harkaman longest of all.
My hyperspatial astrogator, Guatt Kirbey, composes music; he tries to express the mathematics of hyperspatial theory in musical terms. I don't care much for it, myself," he admitted. "I study history. You know, it's odd; practically everything that's happened on any of the inhabited planets happened on Terra before the first spaceship."
He'll probably take it to Joyeuse or Excalibur and buy himself a lordship with it." "Oh, I doubt that, Garvan. A number of our people are going along Guatt Kirbey will be the astrogator; you'd trust him, wouldn't you? And Sir Paytrik Morland, and Baron Rathmore, and Lord Valpry, and Rolve Hemmerding...." He was silent for a moment, struck by an idea.
Baron Rathmore, and Paytrik Morland, and several other Wardshaven gentlemen-adventurers for the latter function; Alvyn Karffard to act as Valkanhayn's exec, with private orders to supersede him in command if necessary, and Guatt Kirbey to do the astrogating. "We'll have to take the Nemesis and the Space Scourge out, first, and make a big raid," Harkaman said.
Guatt Kirbey made a microjump that brought the ships within practical communicating distance, and they began making plans in an intership screen conference. "There are, or were, three chief sources of fissionable ores," Harkaman said. "The last ship to raid here and get away was Stefan Kintour's Princess of Lyonesse, sixty years ago.
"If he left Curtana twelve hundred hours ago, he's still in hyperspace," Guatt Kirbey said. "It's over two thousand from Curtana to the nearest Old Federation planet." "How far to Tanith?" Duke Angus asked. "I'm sure that's where he's gone. He'd expect me to finish the other ship and equip her like the Enterprise and send her out; he'd want to get there first."
You hearing this, Guatt?" "Yeah. It makes sense. Sort of. Now, stop pestering me. Sharll, look here a minute." The normal-space astrogator conferred with him; Alvyn Karffard, the executive officer, joined them. Finally Kirbey pulled out the big red handle, twisted it, and said, "All right, jumping." He shoved it in. "I suppose I cut it too fine; now we'll get kicked back half a million miles."
"You know," Kirbey said, as though he was afraid to admit it, "that wasn't too bad. I think we can make it in one more microjump." Some time, Trask supposed, he'd be able to use the expression "micro-" about a distance of fifty-five million miles, too. "What do you think about it?" Harkaman asked him, as deferentially as though seeking expert guidance instead of examining his apprentice.
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