"Distance?"
"Oh, about half a parsec."
Wilson groaned. "Haven't you determined any spacial attitude?"
"Attitude, sir?"
"The angle of the ship's axis with respect to the stellar positions. So you've a blotch out there at half a parsec. It's an inch or so in diameter. Have one of your juniors run off some trig on the calculator and then tell me how much probable space volume that so-called response represents."
The tech thought a minute. "We've never run this gear anywhere but at Radiation, right at Mojave labs, on Earth. Our spacial coordinates—well, I'm afraid we—" His voice trailed away unhappily.
Wilson picked up the interphone and barked a call.
"Weston? Look, Hugh, can you get over here quick with a couple of your top astrogators? We've got a bunch of longhairs with a fancy infrawave detector and ranger, but the damned coordinates are set axially with the ship."
He listened to Hugh Weston's reply.
"Yeah," he said then. "We know where the target is with respect to the ship, but we don't know the spacial attitude of the ship with respect to the galactic check points. Right over? Good."