"That's done, young man. Will you join me in the Bar for a spacecap?"
"Sorry, sir. I'm very tired. I just want to rest and be quiet."
"But a frothed whiskey would help you to relax. Come along, and let me buy you a final drink before we take off for eternity."
Alan noticed with distaste the white carnation in the coat lapel of his companion. "I hardly like to think of this trip as being synonymous with eternity," he said. "You sound as though you didn't expect to come back."
"Do I? Perhaps I made an unfortunate choice of words. But do you believe in premonitions, Dr. Chase?"
"No. All premonitions stem from indigestion."
"No doubt you are right. But from the moment of boarding this ship I have been haunted by the memory of an extremely vivid story I once read."
"What kind of a story?"
"Oh, it was a scientific romance, one of those impossible flights of fancy they used to publish in my boyhood, about the marvels of future science. This was in the days before we had got outside the solar system, but I still remember the tale, for it was about a spaceship which was wrecked on its first voyage."
"But there've been hundreds of other such stories! Why should this particular one be bothering you now?"