"My ten is beginning to hum already—"
"So is mine."
And maybe the people of Earth were stuck on themselves just a little....
"OK, I'll follow."
"You'll have to now."
And they were apathetic, just sitting back, waiting, telling themselves that all had been done that was possible to do. Because they had done it.
"Velocity needle's going crazy—"
She didn't answer again, and Ten was screaming so he couldn't have heard her if she had. Maybe two minutes until it broke up in his face.
The needle went wild. It hit—just where the original Griffin flight plan had ended—light-speed squared! And then it fell off. And Ten cut out, and so did Nine, Eight, Seven ... Six—Five. Four hummed evenly. And Cragin knew that he'd never forget that impossible series of critical speeds for what remained of his life. Wherever they were, it was within seconds of the absolute ... a second Barrier, Cragin thought, which existed simply because men didn't know how to devise a way to go any further. But—
"You're in X ecliptic now," Lin Griffin's voice told him. But it was a different voice than it had been before. There was something new in it. Something Cragin couldn't find a word for. "Within it, you'll find flight conditions very similar to those of ordinary Deep Space. In a few minutes, you'll be able to pick up the machine-planet in your electroscopes. That's where we're going. Unless you want to turn back. You can, now that you know how the warp pattern works."