He climbed the steps to the navigator's chair again.
The star was far astern.
The velocity had slid way off, but was still too fast. He pulled the lever back and watched the velocity indicator drop.
It was safe to do that—he hoped it was safe to do it. The ship was thirty million out and it should be safe to cut velocity.
He studied the board and it was clearer now—more understandable, more things he knew about. It was not so hard, he thought. It would not be too hard. You had time. You had plenty of time. You had to plan ahead, but you had time to do it. He studied the board and he found the computator he had missed before, the little metal brain—and that was how you told the ship. That was what he had missed before—that was what he had wondered about—how to tell the ship.
And this was the way you told it. You told the little brain.
And the one word—automatic—kept on hounding him.
He found the stud that was labeled telescope and the one that was labeled orbit and still another that was labeled landing.
That was it, he thought.
After all the worry, after all the fears, it was as simple as all that.