The ship was turned and the drive was applied until the star expanded into a true sun. At about a billion miles, they stopped to inspect it sketchily. They were not equipped to make any careful observations of stellar data.
They watched it like sightseers viewing Niagara Falls for an hour. There was really nothing to see that could not be taken in at a glance, but the idea of being near to one of the extrasolar systems was gratifying in itself.
Then, as the realization that they could watch that silently blazing star for years without producing anything of interest or value, Barden called a halt to the self-hypnosis and they resumed their stations. The drive was applied again, and they passed the star, picking up speed as they went.
Somewhere ahead was Sol, lost in the starry curtain of the sky. But they were not lost, for they were headed in roughly the right direction and eventually Sol would emerge and stand out before them in plenty of time to correct their course.
The entire group, their period of strain over, stood idly looking out of the ports. There was nothing to see save that star, passing into the background. But their work was finished and they were loafing. It looked like an excellent time to just stand and do nothing. Barden was inspecting the superdrive unit with a paternal smile, noting with some gratification that it was even smaller than the normal driving gear of the ship. Dr. Edith Ward had gone to her room to repair the damage done during the celebration. Jerry Brandt, the manual pilot, was sitting idly, playing a senseless game with the myriad of switches on his disconnected board as the autopilot controlled the ship.
Two of the crew were matching pennies in front of the meter panel, and three more were watching a chess game between two of the others who were using various-shaped radio tubes as men. All was set for a quiet journey home.
Their first alien sun dwindled and was soon lost. Before them, the stars were immobile until one at near center swelled visibly. Jerry Brandt idly kicked his switches into neutral and switched over to manual drive long enough to correct the course; the swelling star and the rest of the sky swiveled about the ship until Sol was on the cross-hairs.
This time there were no days of flight from Terra to beyond-Pluto. Their ship plunged sunward at a dangerous pace, dropping below the speed of light at the tick of an instant at about the orbit of Jupiter. At under the speed of light but far above the normal speeds of spacecraft, the ship headed Terraward, and slowed as it went. The superdrive was turned off a few thousand miles above Terra and the rest of the voyage to the surface of the planet took actually longer than the quick run across interstellar space.
They landed in the huge construction yard at the Barden Laboratories.
A success—