Genius had gone into the building of the Ship. Far too huge to be assembled on Earth, it had been put together piece by piece in its own orbit out beyond the Moon. There it had swung for fifteen silent years while the problems presented by the decision to make its machinery foolproof and enduring had been formulated and solved. A whole new field of submolar action had been conceived in the process, struggled with, and conquered.
So, when Hugh placed an untutored, questing hand over the first of a row of lights marked ACCELERATION, POSITIVE, he got an immediate response, though not in terms of acceleration. A red light at the top of the chief pilot’s board blinked rapidly and the annunciator panel glowed with a message: MAIN ENGINES: NOT MANNED.
“What does that mean?” he asked Joe-Jim.
“There’s no telling,” said Jim. “We’ve done the same thing in the main engine room,” added Joe. “There, when you try it, it says ‘Control Room Not Manned.'”
Hugh thought a moment. “What would happen,” he persisted, “if all the control stations had somebody at ’em at once, and then I did that?”
“Can’t say,” said Joe. “Never been able to try it.”
Hugh said nothing. A resolve which had been growing, formless, in his mind was now crystalizing into decision. He was busy with it for some time, weighing it, refining it, and looking for the right moment to bring it into the open.
He waited until he found Joe-Jim in a mellow mood, both of him, before broaching his idea. They were in the Captain’s veranda at the time Hugh decided the moment was due. Joe-Jim rested gently in the Captain’s easy chair, his belly full of food, and gazed out through the heavy glass of the view port at the serene stars. Hugh floated beside him. The spinning of the Ship caused the stars to cross the circle of the port in barely perceptible arcs.
Presently he said, “Joe-Jim …”
“Eh? What’s that, youngster?” It was Joe who had replied.
“It’s pretty swell, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“All that. The stars.” Hugh indicated the view through the port with a sweep of his arm, then caught at the chair to stop his own backspin.
“Yeah, it sure is. Makes you feel good.” Surprisingly, it was Jim who offered this.
Hugh knew the time was right. He waited a moment, then said, “Why don’t we finish the job?”
Two heads turned simultaneously, Joe leaning out a little to see past Jim. “What job?”
“The Trip. Why don’t we start up the main drive and go on with it? Somewhere out there,” be said hurriedly to finish before he was interrupted, “there are planets like Earth, or so the First Crew thought. Let’s go find them.”
Jim looked at him, then laughed. Joe shook his head.
“Kid,” he said, “you don’t know what you are talking about. You’re as balmy as Bobo. “No,” he went on, “that’s all over and done with. Forget it.”
“Why is it over and done with, Joe?”
“Well, because. It’s too big a job. It takes a crew that understands what it’s all about, trained to operate the Ship.”
“Does it take so many? You have shown me only about a dozen places, all told, for men actually to be at the controls. Couldn’t a dozen men run the Ship … if they knew what you know,” he added slyly.
Jim chuckled. “He’s got you, Joe. He’s right”
Joe brushed it aside. “You overrate our knowledge. Maybe we could operate the Ship, but we wouldn’t get anywhere. We don’t know where we are. The Ship has been drifting for I don’t know how many generations. We don’t know where we’re headed, or how fast we’re going.”
“But look,” Hugh pleaded, “there are instruments. You showed them to me. Couldn’t we learn how to use them? Couldn’t you figure them out, Joe, if you really wanted to?”
“Oh, I suppose so,” Jim agreed.
“Don’t boast, Jim,” said Joe.
“I’m not boasting,” snapped Jim. “If a thing’ll work, I can figure it out.”
“Humph!” said Joe. The matter rested in delicate balance. Hugh had got them disagreeing among themselves — which was what he wanted — with the less tractable of the pair on his side. Now, to consolidate his gain, “I had an idea,” he said quickly, “to get you men to work with, Jim, if you were able to train them.”