"Not exactly. You don't know about those famous linear departures, but I do. I haven't that excuse—I simply went off half cocked again. You see, it's like this: Even if those gyroscopes could have retained their orientation unchanged through the fourth-dimensional translation, which is highly improbable, that line wouldn't mean a thing as far as getting back is concerned.
"We took one gosh-awful jump in going through hyperspace, you know, and we have no means at all of determining whether we jumped up, down, or sidewise. Nope, he's right, as usual—we can't do anything intelligently until he finds out, from the shifting of spectral lines and so on, in what direction we actually are traveling. How're you coming with it, Mart?"
"For really precise work we shall require photographs of some twenty hours' exposure. However, I have made six preliminary observations, as nearly on rectangular coördinates as possible, from which you can calculate a first-approximation course which will serve until we can obtain more precise data."
"All right! Calcium H and calcium K—Were they all type G?"
"Four of them were of type G, two were of type K. I selected the H and K lines of calcium because they were the most prominent individuals appearing in all six spectra."
"Fine! While you're taking your pictures I'll run them off on the calculator. From the looks of those shifts I'd say I could hit our course within five degrees, which is close enough for a few days, at least."
Seaton soon finished his calculations. He then read off from the great graduated hour-space and declination-circles of the gyroscope cage the course upon which the power bar was then set, and turned with a grin to Crane, who had just opened the shutter for his first time exposure.
"We were off plenty, Mart," he admitted. "The whole gyroscope system was rotated about ninety degrees minus declination and something like plus seven hours' right ascension, so we'll have to forget all our old data and start out from scratch with the reference planes as they are now. That won't hurt us much, though, since we haven't any idea where we are, anyway.
"We're heading about ten degrees or so to the right of that nebula over there, which is certainly a mighty long ways off from where I thought we were going. I'll put on full positive and point ten degrees to the left of it. Probably you'd better read it now, and by taking a set of observations, say a hundred hours apart, we can figure when we'll have to reverse acceleration.
"While you're doing that I thought I'd start seeing what I could do about a fourth-order projector. It'll take a long time to build, and we'll need one bad when we get inside that Galaxy. What do you think?"