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"Very good, sir," said Brabham, conveying the impression that, as far as he was concerned, it wasn't.

* * *

Rather to Grimes's surprise the target date was met.

A cheerless dawn was breaking over the Base as the ramp was retracted, as the last of Discovery's airtight doors sighed shut. The old ship was as spaceworthy as she ever would be, and she had somewhere to go.

Grimes, in the control room, spoke into the microphone. "Discovery to New Maine Aerospace Control. Request outward clearance. Over."

"All clear for your liftoff, Discovery. No air traffic in vicinity of Base. No space traffic whatsoever. Good hunting. Over."

"Thank you, Aerospace Control. Over."

"Base to Discovery." This was Benny's voice. "Good hunting. Over."

"Thank you, Commander Denny. Give my regards to the great snakes. They can have their public convenience back now. Over."

"I wish you were taking the bastards with you, Grimes. Over."

Grimes laughed, and started the inertial drive. Discovery shuddered, heaving herself clear of the apron. She clambered upward like an elderly mountaineer overburdened with equipment. No doubt MacMorris would complain that he should have been given more time to get his innies into proper working order. Then the beat of the engines became louder, more enthusiastic. Grimes relaxed a little. He took a side-wise glance at Tangye, in the co-pilot's seat. This time, he noted, the navigator had done his sums before departure; a loosely folded sheet of paper was peeping out of the breast pocket of his uniform shirt. And what target star would he have selected? Hamlet, probably, in the Shakespearean System, out toward the Rim Worlds. It was a pity that Discovery would not be heading that way.

The ship pushed through the low overcast as though she really meant it, emerged into the clear stratum between it and the high cirrus. Blinding sunlight, almost immediately dimmed as the viewports automatically polarized, smote through into the control room, and, outside, made haloes of iridescence in the clouds of ice particles through which the vessel was driving. She lifted rapidly through the last tenuous shreds of atmosphere.

"Clear of the Van Allens, sir," reported Tangye at last. "Thank you, pilot," acknowledged Grimes. Then, to Brabham, "Make the usual announcements, Number One. Free fall, setting trajectory, all the rest of it."

"Take over now, sir?" asked Tangye, pulling the sheet of notes from his breast pocket.

Grimes grinned at him. "Oh, I think I'll keep myself in practice, pilot. It's time I did some work."

The ship was in orbit now, falling free about New Maine. Grimes produced his own sheet of paper, glanced at it, then at the constellations patterned on the blackness outside the viewports. He soon found the one that he was looking for, although why the first settlers on this planet had called it The Mermaid he could not imagine. Their imaginations must have been far more vivid than his. His fingers played over the controls and the directional gyroscopes began to spin, and the hull turned about them. "Sir," said Tangye urgently. "Sir!"

"Yes, pilot?"

"Sir, Hamlet's in The Elephant. From here, that is—"

"How right you are, Mr. Tangye. But why should we be heading toward Elsinore?"

"But, sir, the orders said that we were to make a sweep out toward the Rim."

"That's right," put in Brabham.

"I have steadied this ship," said Grimes coldly, "on to Delta Mermaid. We shall run on that trajectory until further orders—orders from myself, that is. Number One, pass the word that I am about to start the Mannschenn Drive."

"As you say, sir," replied Brabham sulkily.

Deep in the bowels of the vessel the gleaming rotors began to turn, to spin and to tumble, to precess out of normal space-time, pulling the ship and all her people with them down the dark dimensions, through the warped continuum. There was the usual fleeting second or so of temporal disorientation, while shapes wavered and colors sagged down the spectrum,