"Want to bet?"
"Look," grunted Grayson, no longer angry at the voice, "you've got a fine calculating gadget there. Why not have it figure out the betting possibilities and make book on me?"
"We tried to make it pick horses for us once but the answer came back as 'Data incomplete, factors uncertain.' The elecalc does not like horses."
"But I'm not a horse."
"I hear there's a woman tied up in this thing. That's the predictably unpredictable factor, that men, the imbeciles, will get involved with women—even as you and I. Anyway, Grayson, we'll have you a course. It won't be as cold turkey as last night's, but it will serve in a way."
"In what way?" asked Paul.
"We can't set the spotter ship. Not enough time. You'll have to aim the ship visually. It'll make the dispersion-factor somewhat large."
"I don't mind."
"Good thing you don't," came the glum reply.
Both of them knew that the job of aiming a stellar ship was accepted by the public as one of the things that had to be done; few of them knew what went into the job. All stars are but pinpoints in the sky, there is no quick way to tell a close-by star from a distant star by visual inspection. To the untrained, even the solar planets blend with the interstellar reaches. Only the trained eye can tell planets from the stars by the lack of twinkle.