"Wait," Starbuck cried desperately. "I don't know anything about the overdrive. You can guide me, can't you, sir? That would be all right with the brain, wouldn't it?"
Birdsel shrugged. "Would it?"
The screen stayed a stubborn neutral gray.
"Stay, sir."
"All right," Birdsel said dubiously.
The overdrive switchbox had been incorporated into the cybernetics system itself as an interlock.
"There isn't much to do," Captain Birdsel explained. "We trigger the jump and come out at a mathematically selected random spot in real-space after phasing through hyperspace. The Brain scans the sun systems in the area for unique planets worthy of exploration. If there is one, we zero in on it via fixed phase until the gravitational field makes it necessary to switch back to standard interplanetary or nuclear drive. We can make suggestions to the Brain or theoretically override one of its decisions. Actually, all we have to do is watch. Thumb the button, Ben. It wants you to do it. It likes you."
"Aye, captain." Starbuck could believe a cybernetic machine could like him. Everybody else on board seemed to, and it unnerved him more than a little. Only a selected few had ever particularly liked Benjamin Starbuck before. The situation reminded him a bit of Melville's Billy Budd; only he wasn't a "handsome sailor," just a fairly average-looking spaceman.
Starbuck depressed the button.
The button depressed Starbuck.