Broster ran a hand through his chestnut hair, a puzzled look in his eyes. He glared at the space-chart for a moment, as if loath to believe that that faithful instrument could have gone haywire. Then he picked his way over to the electro-telescope to verify the sighting personally.
A moment later, the three were looking at each other wonderingly. All realized what this might mean: if that space-chart failed them, it might be all over with any possibility ever of returning home. Space-navigating in the bounds of the solar system was one thing; there it didn't matter whether you ran by chart or by observation. But here in the bounds of cosmic space, thousands of light-years from the sun, where they had to navigate in the blackness of interstellar distances, the space-chart was all-important. Bodies out here were dark; there were no stars nearby from which they could reflect light....
"That chart will have to be overhauled," murmured the captain. "If it's gone wrong...."
"What about this planet? It's the only one around this star," put in Kendall, jerking a thumb in its general direction.
"Head toward it; we may as well give it the once-over."
The huge ship pursued its unvarying course toward the approaching star. At a single light-year away, they decelerated, slowed down. Riding the strange eka-gravity waves, the little-known carrier-waves for light and gravity which seemed to travel as fast in relation to light as light in relation to sound, this craft of the Thirtieth Century was able to accomplish what had for centuries been believed unachievable.
They approached until at last the gravital drag clutched the ship, started to draw it in toward that vast, fiery globe spurting forth countless tons of disintegrated matter per second, emanating energy inconceivable. Yet, withal, a small star, smaller than Sol and quite inconspicuous as stars go.
As they drifted, Broster and Seaward examined the space-chart thoroughly. But in vain; nothing could be found out of order: no short circuits, no tubes needing replacement. It was in perfect shape, but ... it refused to light a white speck in its black field for the near planet.
They watched the planet grow larger, slowly made out surface details. A ruddy world, bathed entirely in red light, although the star around which it circled was white. Crimson clouds floated in masses of carmine seas and necine land-masses. The glow of the red world shone in through the stella-quartzite ports, throwing a weird, bloody glare on everything.
"This is a helluva world," growled Kendall. "You'd go nuts there after awhile."