A little notice on the bulletin board was Morley's first inkling that his safe, secure routine was on the verge of mutating into something frighteningly unpredictable.
"All personnel not on duty will report to the recreation room at 1900 hours, Solar time, to draw for side trip partners and destinations," it read.
He buttonholed the crew messman. "What's all this about side trips, Oscar?"
Roly poly Oscar looked at him incredulously. "The lay over trips. The time killer. On the level, don't you know?"
Morley shook his head.
"Well," Oscar told him, "We leave Earth shortly before Saturn is in opposition. They figure on the shortest possible run, which takes three months. If we discharge and start right back, the round trip would take about six months. That's fine, except that the synodic period for Earth and Saturn—Hey, you know what I'm talking about?"
Morley admitted his ignorance, vaguely annoyed at the fact that for once he was the humble seeker for information, and someone else was being professorial.
Oscar grinned. "And you studied astrogation! Well, when Saturn and Earth line up with the Sun, it takes three hundred and seventy eight days before they get in the same position again. So if we got back to Earth's orbit in six months, we'd still have about a hundred and eighty millions of miles to go, because Earth would be on Sol's other side at that time, in superior conjunction to Uranus."
Morley digested this, while Oscar basked in the light of his own knowledge, enjoying himself hugely.
"And the trips, Oscar?"