"They're not." Jan insisted. "A direct view through the visiplates proves they're not." Karin didn't reply, and he added angrily. "Go ahead and say it again. You're thinking it, anyway. I'm a lousy navigator. I'm the one who insisted on passing between the stars."
"I wasn't thinking that at all," she said slowly. "I was wondering. What could have caused this to happen? Offhand, I couldn't even make a reasonable guess. Shall we try using our power?"
"What would be the use?" Jan said. "Even with the degravitizer on to protect us, we can't get up more than one hundred g's. We can't overcome a reverse acceleration of seven thousand."
"Suppose we reverse direction."
Jan nodded, and said, "We'll try that."
Slowly and carefully he swung the ship around, and began to build up speed. The maneuver claimed his full attention, giving him no time to look at Karin, and wonder whether or not she was frightened.
It was a stupid situation to be caught in, and from beginning to end Jan had no one to blame but himself. It was a few years before that Intergalactic Exploration had started a new practice, thought up apparently by some elderly Romeo in his second childhood. It was a special service for honeymooners.
What did honeymooners, from time immemorial, want for themselves? Privacy, isolation—freedom from intrusion by the outside world. What did Intergalactic have to offer the intrepid volunteers who did its exploration? Just that—complete privacy in space. It was all in the way you looked at it. The isolation most people hated was precisely what the honeymooners sought.
It had seemed like a bright idea to combine a boon to the honeymooners with a favor to Intergalactic. Intergalactic had offered ships—shiny, beautiful ships of the latest exploratory model, capable of a sub-speed of half-light, and for stellar travel with a secondary range up to a hundred light years. Each was completely supplied with food, and furnished with all the gadgets that made shipboard housekeeping a pleasure. And all this was free of charge to properly trained couples possessed of a reasonable mental stability, and a suitably technical background.
There was no salary, of course—after all, the ship itself was reward enough. In return, each couple was given a restricted section of a galaxy to explore. The task was not difficult. Professional explorers could have carried out their assignments in three months. The honeymoon couples were allowed twice that time.