Three sights told me that we were off course. Unaccountably, of course, for we had made no major corrections in the last week. Instead of pointing at the spot in space where we would intercept Mars, we were five degrees sunward.
I triggered my suit radio and called to Swanson in Control.
"Swanson here, Captain," his voice came back in my ear phones.
"We are five degrees sunward of our plotted course, Swanson," I said. "Correct immediately."
He sounded miffed as he replied: "Mars is right in the crosshairs of the course-scope, Sir. Right where she's been for the last week...."
I told him to stand by and checked my star-sights again. I had made no error. We were a full five degrees off course, and the deviation was growing larger momentarily. I could easily detect it with my tetrant out here in the seldom used blister, yet in the course-scope in Control Mars showed centered in the crosshairs. Why? Even as I asked myself that question my mind flashed back to the awful moment in the tube-shaft. Almost wildly, I thrust the thought away from me. Yet if that thing I had felt really lived and was intelligent ... could it control the images that showed in instruments that were an integral part of the ship ... of its own body? Could it control those so that such an error as this could not be discovered except by the off chance that someone should make a direct check with star-sights outside the ship itself? There was a craftiness about the disparity that frightened me.
I forced myself to relax and I laughed half-heartedly at my imaginings. The weeks spent living under trying conditions in a crippled ship had made me susceptible to vaporings. I gave Swanson the correction again.
"There must be something wrong with the scope relays, Swanson. Maybe the jar of the crash bollixed them," I said. "Correct with five point five to port. Plane is okay."
"Aye, Sir," grumbled Swanson.
I laid the tetrant in its rack and turned to leave the blister just as the ship began to throb under the impact of the correcting thrust from the nozzles. I glanced back over my shoulder for a last look at the sky, and....