Warren said soberly, "What you say about Anjers'—Borisu's—treachery is quite true. Nevertheless, we have no right to pass judgment upon him. The thing to do is hold him in protective custody, take him back to Earth with us when we go, and there let him stand judgment before a properly constituted court. Law and order must be upheld."
O'Day laughed curtly. "There speaks the Space Patrolman. Once a cop, always a cop, eh, Warren?"
Warren flushed. "Maybe so. But that's the way I feel about it."
And the one-time pirate shrugged. "Okay, skipper. It's your ship. Save him it is. But—" He glared distastefully at the Magogean—"it's a good thing for you, buster, that we're aboard the Liberty and not the Black Star...."
So Borisu was taken away and placed under lock and key in the Liberty's brig. And later the leaders of the expedition gathered once more in the control turret of the Liberty as Hugh Warren, with his instruments, struggled to set a true and proper course for the ship.
"It's baffling," he confessed ruefully after futile consultation with his azimuth chart and astrogation table. "I can't seem to orient myself at all. There are no constant bodies to set a course by. Or, rather, there are plenty of known bodies—but they don't look right. Nothing looks right!"
"What do you mean?"
"Why, just that. Everything's cockeyed. Out of proportion. Here, see for yourself—"
Warren touched the stud which activated the vision plate. On the fore-lens screen was enmirrored that segment of space which lay before the Liberty.