The sad truth was, he had welcomed the delay over his own interrogation, wanted the time to make up his own mind. In the end he had decided that no one, least of all himself, had anything to gain from a prolonged voyage with Gourdy in command. And so he had planned to tell about the light-speed effect.

The murder of the three men changed that purpose. Now, he dared not tell, for, obviously, Gourdy would be unwilling to return to Earth, where a court might take a dim view of the killings.

As a cover-up for his genuine state of shock, Lesbee adopted the scientific pose. Complete control by non-scientists was a terrible mistake; that was his argument. He thereupon proposed that his forces and Gourdy's work together to achieve the journey to Earth. He suggested a captain's board consisting of Gourdy, two of Gourdy's henchmen, Tellier, and himself.

'That,' he said, 'will give you a three-to-two voting majority, but will provide a stable communication line with two persons who know how the ship works and who were also victims of the previous hierarchy.'

Lesbee had no real expectation that Gourdy would accept such a compromise. He did hope it would create a softening attitude in the man.

If so, there was no immediate sign of it. Gourdy did not believe in boards, or councils, or split commands, and he proceeded to make this clear. The ship had one commander, himself. All persons aboard would either co-operate with him to the best of their ability or they would be punished according to their dereliction. Death would be the penalty for any kind of severe disloyalty or sabotage.

The statement of policy was so harshly uttered that Lesbee felt abrupt fear for his own safety. Recovering, he quietly promised to obey Gourdy's orders.

The small man stared at him for many seconds after he had spoken. Then his manner changed to a kind of surly cordiality. 'Let's drink on that, hey!' he said.

He poured wine into two glasses, handed one to Lesbee, and raised the other in a toast. What he said was, 'Mr. Lesbee, I kept your interview to the last because the fact is you're probably the only expert aboard I can trust – in spite of you being the one I took over from.'

They sipped the wine, Lesbee uneasy but as convinced as ever that he couldn't tell the other man about the nearness of Earth, Gourdy a little puzzled by something in Lesbee's manner but satisfied that his selection of Lesbee was logical.

He grew expansive, said slyly, 'In a couple of weeks, if you behave, I'll bring you up to a cabin and send your real wife to live with you.' He added, 'Although I haven't done anything about it yet, I'm probably gonna have to keep those other two women. My own wife – believe it or not – insists on it. Startled me, because she used to be so damned jealous down below. Not here. I guess' – he frowned – 'being on a ship like this is not good for a woman. Makes her feel empty inside. She's already blasted me with a kind of crazy hysteria about it. I think she has some kind of feeling that I won't really be captain till I take over the captain's wives. But don't worry, it won't include yours.'

Lesbee remained silent. He sat considering the possibilities that the emotional instability of the women aboard might be due to voyage conditions. Then he realized it was of little consequence.

Gourdy was continuing unhappily: 'Makes it kind of awkward. Down below, we were against all this multiple-wife stuff. We'll sure look like phonies if we just grab for women the moment we're in control.' Once more, he frowned. Then he straightened, raised his glass. 'I'll think about the other ladies later. Here's to your wife.'

After they had drunk the wine, his manner changed again. He put his glass down. He said curtly, 'Let's get this ship headed for home.'

He led the way to the auxiliary control room. 'No bridge yet for you,' he said, then warned, 'don't try any tricks now.'

Lesbee walked over to the control board in a deliberate fashion. The question in his mind was: If he simply set the two dials and threw two switches, would Gourdy get the idea that he could handle this himself? On the other hand, if he made it seem too complex, the man might have someone else -Miller or Mindel – check on everything he did.

In the end he did only two unnecessary things. Since Gourdy wanted to know the meaning of his moves, he explained in double-talk what he had done and why. A few minutes later he had the acceleration at twelve g's, and the artificial gravity at eleven, thus leaving a gap of one gravity, exactly the same as on Earth.

The programming completed, Lesbee stood by while Gourdy announced the action over the public-address system, ending with, 'We're going home. Yes, my friends, our destination is Earth itself.'

He instructed: '... sleep in your acceleration belts, since we plan to increase acceleration during the night.'

Lesbee listened, ashamed and embarrassed. Such an 'increase' in acceleration merely meant that he would widen the gap between the drive thrust and the artificial gravity, which was unnecessary. Since Dzing had 'adjusted' the coils in the engines and the synchronizers in the artificial gravity system, they could be stepped up simultaneously to maintain a steady one gravity, no matter what the rate of increase.

However, this had not hitherto been true; so he would not let it be true now. It was to his advantage to immobilize people.

Listening to the man, Lesbee thought with gloomy cynicism: 'The ridiculous truth is, the moment he discovers how near to Earth we actually are, with this new engine control, he'll kill me out of hand.'

As the days and the weeks passed, he realized he was the only technical person who was being permitted to go into the two control rooms and in the engine room. It became apparent that whatever was finally done would be up to him.

His brain seethed with schemes. And yet the only possible thing he could actually do occurred to him the first day. He kept rejecting it, saw too many flaws in it, felt its danger. But on the twenty-sixth day he told the idea to Tellier. It was one of those rare moments when he was certain he was not being spied on: Gourdy had left the lower floors only moments before and was obviously en route somewhere and not listening in, and so Lesbee could speak freely.

He grew aware of his friend's dismay. 'Exceed the speed of light!' Tellier echoed. 'Are you serious?'

Lesbee said defensively, 'We won't actually do it. But I've got to get it programmed for and in reserve. He's a killer -don't ever forget that.'

Tellier groaned. 'If this is the best you can think of, we're in trouble.'

Lesbee explained earnestly: 'At our present rate of acceleration, we'll come to 99.999998 per cent of light-speed in about three days. When that happens, it will require only two ship hours to jump many light-years, all the way to the solar system. So we've got to stop accelerating or we'll zoom right out of the galaxy. Now, how do I do all this without letting on to Gourdy who expects the journey to Earth to take thirty years?'

A strange look came into Tellier's thin, intellectual face. He grabbed Lesbee's arm, said hoarsely, 'John – during these three days, why don't you just fix up one of the lifeboats, shut off our engines, scramble the light system, and in the confusion you and me get off?'

Lesbee was taken aback. Leave the ship! Although he considered that the idea was not practicable, he was astonished that such a thought had never occurred to him. But he realized why it hadn't. The ship was a part of his life and not a separate thing at all.

He said finally, thinking out loud, 'There would have to be some fix-up on that lifeboat. It takes a long time to slow down. What I figure is, when we get close to light-speed, I'll juggle the gravity and the acceleration, and then get permission to cut off.'