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Lisa Arden lay strapped in her bunk and watched the big blue world on her cabin’s viewscreen. Like the rest of the crew, she had been briefed on what to expect during their approach. And, like the rest of the crew, she was not particularly interested.

For even though Neptune was just about the farthest point in the Solar System and Sol’s outermost “real planet,” when one considered the length of the voyage on which they were about to embark, it was akin to walking down the hall to the bathroom in one’s own flat. Behind them lay 4.5 billion kilometers of empty space, and before them, a gulf so large that “billion kilometers” was too small a unit of measure.

After a few minutes spent looking down into the blue complexity of Neptune’s upper atmosphere and gazing at the enormous cyclone that had been dubbed “The Great White Spot,” she shifted her gaze to the pulsing red beacon just above the gas giant’s limb. Over the next several minutes, the laser beacon resolved itself into a tiny sphere, and then into an ever-larger globe. Finally, they were close enough to recognize the globe as the Starship
Magellan
.

“That is the ship that brought me to Earth, is it not?” Sar-Say asked from the upper bunk. Like her, the pseudo-simian would have preferred to have his face pressed against a viewport during the approach.

However, the Stellar Survey’s regulations stated, “All passengers to be strapped down under conditions of variable acceleration,” and the captain had proved a stickler for regulations.

“Right,” Lisa answered. “That is
Magellan
. She is back from fetching the starships we had out on survey.”

Earth’s starships were clustered as close together as such ships ever get, yet the scale of space is such that only a few of the starships and giant freighters servicing them were within visual range.

Since she did not expect to see any other ships, Lisa was surprised when a trio of ungainly mechanisms drifted into view, and then off the edge of the screen as the
Ruptured Whale
passed them. The things -

she was sure they had not been ships - were gone too quickly to gain more than an impression of their shape. The fact that they had been visible at all meant that the
Whale
had come close to a mid-space collision.

“What were they?” Lisa wondered aloud.

“I was talking to Chief Engineer Dresser,” Sar-Say said. “She was telling me about the scientific instruments used to detect gravity waves. I believe that those were the same instruments.”

Lisa nodded. Of course! What she had just seen were the gravtenna units they would be taking along.

Usually the gravtenna constellation orbited between Earth and Mars. However, the Solar Systems’ only gravity wave observatory had been requisitioned for their expedition. Once at the Crab Nebula, they would begin “listening” for the characteristic gravity waves produced by stargates.

The physicists had broached the subject of gravity waves with Sar-Say as soon as the alien’s vocabulary improved to the point where the answers were intelligible. Travel via stargate involved the disappearance of a ship from one point in the universe and its simultaneous reappearance at another. Because a ship literally falls into a wormhole, one terminus of which is anchored to the gate, the discontinuous mass function produces ripples in the fabric of space-time -- gravity waves. Each jump results in two such waves being produced, one centered at the point of departure and the other at the point of arrival. These waves radiate outward in all directions at the speed of light and are detectable to distances of several thousand light-years.

Most travel within the Sovereignty was between pairs of stargates and the gravity waves thus produced were of low-to-moderate intensity. It was not necessary to have a stargate at both ends of a jump, however. Given sufficient power, a stargate can drive a single-ended wormhole across the galaxy. That is what had happened to the
Ruptured Whale
’s former owners when the Broan Avenger fired on it during a jump. Wormholes anchored at only one end produced the equivalent of a gravity tidal wave wherever they emerged. It was just such a mega-wave that
Magellan
had felt following Sar-Say’s abrupt arrival in the New Eden system.

By detecting the gravity waves produced by ships transiting stargates, and then plotting their points of origin, the expedition hoped to discover at least a few systems of the Broan Sovereignty.

“I would think that if it were that easy, we would have discovered your people long before now,” Lisa had said to Sar-Say one night while they had been discussing gravity waves.

Sar-Say explained to her about interstellar distances and the communications delay imposed by the speed of light. He concluded with, “The fact that you have not detected us indicates that none of the gravity waves we have produced have yet reached the Solar System. If this nebula that you people call

‘The Crab’ is truly Sky Flower, then you will not see a wave produced today for at least 7000 years.”

As Lisa lay in her bunk and watched, the spherical ship swelled until it filled the viewscreen.
Magellan
was as she had first seen it at PoleStar, with the exception that the starship was the center of a beehive of activity. Everywhere she looked, there were small inter-orbit scooters and microgravity haulers floating around the big starship. One small vessel would undock from the starship, only to have another take its place a few moments later. Since
Magellan
had been out combing the cosmos for the other starships, she had been late in arriving and the crews were working overtime to prepare her for the coming voyage.

The feeling of weight disappeared and Lisa floated into her restraining straps just as the ship on the viewscreen ceased its expansion. The cessation of acceleration announced that they had arrived. Lisa reached for the strap release just as an authoritative voice issued from the cabin annunciator to order her (and everyone else onboard) to stay as they were.

The reason for the order became clear a few minutes later as a vacsuited figure rocketed away from one of
Magellan
’s docking ports, trailing a cable behind. The figure approached directly into the camera, and then disappeared from view. Only the lazily twisting cable was visible for long minutes. Then, the cable grew taut and they began to slide smoothly forward.

Starships
Magellan
and
Ruptured Whale
were about to engage in an act of intercourse.

#

“Come along, Mr. Vasloff,” Lisa shouted as she followed Sar-Say’s diminutive figure around the circumferential corridor toward
Ruptured Whale
’s main cargo hold. The hold, which still contained much of its original manifest of alien gadgets, had a new addition. Inside was an Earth-standard docking portal.

When the hatch doors were opened, the portal telescoped out from the ship and latched onto a mating device aboard
Magellan
. Once docked, the two ships could exchange personnel without the bother of suiting up first. Buried as it was inside the cargo hold, when the cargo doors were closed, the non-Broan technology was out of sight of any inquisitive alien eyes they might encounter. The docking port was merely one of the additions the work crews had made to the alien starship, and like all the other enhancements, great care had been taken to camouflage it.

Lisa, Sar-Say, and Mikhail Vasloff were en route to
Magellan
, where the final pre-launch mission briefing was to take place. All over the fleet, ships’ captains and first officers embarked for the vessel that would serve as the expedition flagship.

Mark Rykand was not with their small group as they made their way through the accordion-pleated tube that connected the two ships. He had gone ahead to help with the astronomical details of the briefing. He had also transported several hundred record cubes containing Lisa Arden’s course in
Conversational
Broan
. The software was to be distributed to the fleet at the briefing.

Their destination was
Magellan
’s hangar bay, the largest compartment aboard the ship. Even so, when the three of them arrived, they discovered the bay packed with auxiliary craft, twelve-sided crates, and a milling mob of humanity. Sar-Say’s arrival set off a muted wave of muttering and a general turning of heads. The pseudo-simian halted in the airlock and gazed upward at the surrounding faces. Beside him, Lisa halted as well. She wondered if the Taff had the equivalent of human horror holos. If so, a typical scene would probably look like this one -- a single Taff surrounded by staring naked alien faces. The compartment was also thick with the odor of packed humanity. She wondered what Sar-Say thought of the smell.

“Over there,” Lisa said, pointing to three empty microgravity perches near the anchored podium. She, Sar-Say, and Vasloff made their way to where Dan Landon floated behind an anchored podium. For her part, Lisa tried not to put her foot in anyone’s face.

“Welcome,” Landon said to her and Sar-Say. He ignored Vasloff, who did not seem to take offense at the slight. “We have been waiting for your arrival to begin the briefing.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Sar-Say said formally. “Also, please transmit my appreciation to your superiors. I know the difficulty your people had in deciding to aid me in my return home.”

“We have reasons of our own to go in search of the Broa,” Landon replied.

The three of them anchored themselves next to Dr. Faraday,
Ruptured Whale
’s medical officer. The captain turned back to his preparations, and within a few minutes, pressed the control that caused a raucous klaxon to echo through the hangar bay. The “prepare for impact” alarm had the intended effect.

The buzz of dozens of conversations ceased with the dying echoes of the alarm.

After a few seconds’ wait, Landon began the briefing. “We all know why we are here. I should not have to tell you that this will be the longest voyage ever attempted by human beings, and possibly, the most hazardous. If anyone breaks down en route, there will be no rescue. We would not know where to begin looking for you.

“Now then, you have all studied the mission plan, so there is no need to go over it again. However, on the theory that there is always one
goofer
who never seems to get the word, that is precisely what we
will
do. Chief Scientist Bendagar, you have the floor --”

Raoul Bendagar had been huddled with Mark Rykand when Lisa entered the hangar bay. He now floated forward to replace the captain at the lectern.

“Good morning, ladies, gentlemen, Sar-Say. I imagine that Columbus, Cook, and this ship’s namesake, Magellan, must have felt similarly on the verge of their own great voyages of discovery.”

“They were more likely hung over from drinking and whoring…” a voice called out from the back of the compartment.

Without missing a beat, Bendagar responded, “My point exactly!”

The ensuing roar of laughter was more than the joke deserved, but it had its intended purpose. The tension in the compartment dropped noticeably. Bendagar waited for the reaction to subside before continuing. He pressed a control on the lectern and the holocube lit to show a star chart.

“Here, then, is the operational plan. Twelve starships will leave Neptune orbit in three days. We will depart in line-astern formation and accelerate out to where we are clear of the planet’s gravity well. We will then jump to superlight and head directly toward the Crab Nebula. The distance is 7000 light-years, and we will be in transit for 380 days.

“As you are all aware, astrogation over such a distance will be a problem. We have yet to venture far enough from Sol to be able to triangulate stars at that distance, so we can only estimate these things. To keep calibration errors to a minimum, each ship will drop sublight once each week to zero their baselines.

On our arrival, we will all head for the assembly point --”

The scene in the cube changed to show a yellow star at the edge of the glowing nebula cloud. The green identification letters next to the star identified it as No. 184-2838 in the New General Astronomical Catalog, Twenty First Edition.

“The star is a G3 giant, approximately the same size and type as Capella. Unlike Capella, it is a variable and only about ten light-years from The Crab. In fact, it is within the nebula’s gas shell. Once your ships have reached the nebula, you will make directly for this star. The rendezvous point will be whichever planet is closest to the middle of the temperate zone. If that proves unworkable, we will rendezvous 100

astronomical units due galactic north from the star.”

“What if we discover aliens?” someone shouted.

“That is unlikely. The system was sterilized by radiation from the supernova less than ten thousand years ago. In addition, as I mentioned, it is a variable star. However, you are advised to drop sublight well distant from this star and to sweep the system with your instruments before approaching. If you find anything, you will divert to the first alternate assembly point.”

“Won’t the Crab Pulsar mask gravity waves emanating from the Broan stargates?” someone asked.

“If anything, the metronome regularity of the pulsar will make anomalous gravity waves more obvious.

Now then, as to other details, I will hand you back to Captain Landon.”

#

The briefing continued for two more hours. After it ended, Mikhail Vasloff asked to see Dan Landon.

The two of them made their way through the milling humanity to Landon’s office.

“Yes, Mr. Vasloff?”

“I have a request, Captain. I understand that I am slated to return to Earth aboard one of the freighters after the fleet’s departure.”

Landon nodded. “It will be good to get home again, I imagine.”

“I don’t want to go home. I want to go on the expedition.”

The captain blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

“I want to accompany you on the coming voyage.”

“Considering your views on interstellar exploration, I would expect you to be the last person to make such a request. Why are you?”

“So that I will be in a position to influence events and see that my own point of view is represented.”