"How long will we be safe? We can't move."
"Strictly speaking," he said, "we can. We can't get away, but we can wriggle around a bit. Apparently we can travel a few million miles in any direction perpendicular to the line joining the stars. We could probably also travel directly toward either star, although I'd hate to get any closer to them. Unfortunately, the stars won't let us get away."
"Are you sure it's the stars? There might be planets with intelligent living creatures on them."
"That's out!" said Jan firmly. "Take a look at some of the three-dimensional views I snapped, both as we approached, and as we were wriggling around. Taking all the pictures into consideration, I must have covered all the space for at least a billion miles from either star. There are no planets."
Together they stared at the photographs. Karin suggested: "There might be small ones, little bigger than asteroids. Let's put the pictures under the analyzer."
They did. The analyzer showed an asteroid belt four hundred million miles out from the center of the double star system. But none of the asteroids was apparently more than five miles in diameter.
"No planets," Jan reiterated. "And if there are any living creatures on those asteroids, I doubt whether they'd be close enough to affect us. It's pretty obvious that the forces holding us together come from the stars themselves."
"Then you think the forces are natural? I've never heard of anything of the kind before."
"The forces would have to be natural."