Now he knew why tranquils were popular during phasing.
For one instant, Starbuck stopped believing in everything—the spaceship, the captain, Earth, his own identity, the universe. He went completely insane, a cockeyed psychotic. It was over just quick enough to leave him a mind to remember what not having one was like.
"My," the captain said, his head on an angle. He looked as if he were gazing at some classic piece of art, such as a calendar by Marilyn Monroe, the last of the great realists whose work was indistinguishable from color photography.
"That is a dandy," Birdsel said.
Starbuck swiveled his head around to the outer projection portal. There in all its glory was a star system.
There seemed to be four stars all orbiting each other—two red dwarfs, one yellow midget and a white giant. One planet was clearly visible on the side of the system towards the ship, an odd lopsided dumbbell shape in the center of a translucent sphere of tiny satellites—cosmic dust, like the rings of Saturn. Strangest of all, the outer shell of the planet was sending in Interplanetary Morse: CQ, CQ, CQ....
"It," Starbuck ventured with a new-found sophistication, "seems rather unusual. I suppose we'll take a closer look, Captain?"