They started for the observatory. Morey joined them and Arcot put the view of Sol and his family on the telectroscope screen. He increased the magnification to maximum, and the four men looked eagerly at the system. The sun glowed brilliantly, and the planets showed plainly.
"Now, if we wanted to take the trouble, we could calculate when the planets were in that position and determine the distance we have come. However, I notice that Pluto is still in place, so that means we are seeing the Solar System as it was before the passing of the Black Star. We're at least two light years away."
"More than that," said Morey. He pointed at the screen. "See here, how Mars is placed in relation to Venus and Earth? The planets were in that configuration seven years ago. We're seven light years from Earth."
"Good enough!" Arcot grinned. "That means we're within two light years of Sirius, since we were headed in that direction. Let's turn the ship so we can take a look at it with the telectroscope."
Since the power had been cut off, the ship was in free fall, and the men were weightless. Arcot didn't try to walk toward the control room; he simply pushed against the wall with his feet and made a long, slow dive for his destination.
The others reached for the handgrips in the walls while Arcot swung the ship gently around so that its stern was pointed toward Sirius. Because of its brilliance and relative proximity to Sol, Sirius is the brightest star in the heavens, as seen from Earth. At this much lesser distance, it shone as a brilliant point of light that blazed wonderfully. They turned the telectroscope toward it, but there was little they could see that was not visible from the big observatory on the Moon.
"I think we may as well go nearer," suggested Morey, "and see what we find on close range observation. Meanwhile, turn the ship back around and I'll take some pictures of the sun and its surrounding star field from this distance. Our only way of getting back is going to be this series of pictures, so I think we had best make it complete. For the first light century, we ought to take a picture every ten light years, and after that one each light century until we reach a point where we are only getting diminishing pictures of the local star cluster. After that, we can wait until we reach the edge of the Galaxy."
"Sounds all right to me," agreed Arcot. "After all, you're the astronomer, I'm not. To tell you the truth, I'd have to search a while to find Old Sol again. I can't see just where he is. Of course, I could locate him by means of the gyroscope settings, but I'm afraid I wouldn't find him so easily visually."
"Say! You sure are a fine one to pilot an expedition in space!" cried Wade in mock horror. "I think we ought to demote him for that! Imagine! He plans a trip of a thousand million light years, and then gets us out seven light years and says he doesn't know where he is! Doesn't even know where home is! I'm glad we have a cautious man like Morey along." He shook his head sadly.
They took a series of six plates of the sun, using different magnifications.