They were going at it in a pedantic manner, hurling equations and theorems and postulates at one another like lawyers with a case for the supreme court, not men who were heading for God-Knows-What at a headlong pace under an ever-increasing acceleration.
There were all sorts of arguments as to the aspect of the sky as the speed of light was approached. And how it would look at a velocity of more than light. This went on for some time, with Steve Hammond holding out for blackout and John McBride holding for a sky that crawled forward due to the angle-vectors created by the ship's passage across the light rays, until the entire sky appeared before them—all the stars in the sky would be in the hemisphere in front of them, no constellation recognizable.
"But your supposition does not recognize the doppler effect," objected Hammond. "Visible light will be out of the visible spectrum."
"True enough. But solar radiation extends from down low in the electromagnetic scale to very very high in the extra-hard UV. Visible spectra will be dopplered into the UV, all right, but the radio waves will have an apparent frequency of light, and we shall see the stars by that, I think."
"With no change in color?" asked Hammond skeptically.
"There will be a change in color, naturally. We'll observe them in accordance with whatever long waves they emit; they will in no way resemble the familiar stars we know."
"How's a poor devil going to navigate at any rate?" asked Larry. "With everything out of place—or invisible—what's he going to use for signposts?"
"In normal usage, the super drive will be fine. We've been using autopilots for years and years, setting up the whole course from take-off to the last half hour of landing. We can still do it. We'll be flying blind, but so what? We fly pretty blind as it is; no one gives a rap about the sky outside. Instrument flying is our best bet."
"Well," said Hammond, "we'll see it soon enough. The color of the stars behind us are changing right now."
"They should. We're running at three quarters of light—and, Stevey Boy, they're still visible!"