Page:Stirring Science Stories, March 1942.djvu/23

 telescopic cameras and recorded in other ways by other instruments.



The man could detect where it was by the glow registering on the surface cell clusters. He could tell where it was by the gravitational directives functioning on the panels. He could tell exactly its mass and speed, his own speed, the Earth's, the sun's and every other major body's. He knew what their orbits were and what was to be done to bring the ship back to Earth.

He laughed to himself briefly when the thought struck him that he had now been in space almost three days and yet had not set eyes on the stars. It struck him that that was probably the longest such period away from a sight of the stars that he had ever been in his life. And yet, actually, he was surrounded by them!

As he was setting the dials to