“Greetings!” The pilot pointed to the chair beside his own. “Sit down—you haven’t got your ship’s legs yet. Did you have good dreams?”
Dard moved his tongue experimentally. “Can’t remember any,” the words came out easily now-at least his voice hadn’t rusted away, “Where are we?”
Kimber chuckled. “Space only knows. But we’re near enough to a reasonable goal for the old girl to awake Kordov and me. Then we added you to the company-and will probably bring around a couple more before we land. See?”
On the screen three specks of light dotted the dark glass.
“That’s it, a new solar system, m’boy! Luck-Lord, Luck’s ridden on our rockets most of the way. That"-Kimber pointed to the largest of the dots-"that is a yellow sun, approximate temperature 11,000 degrees, approximate size-same as Sol. In fact, it could be Sol’s twin brother. And being Sol’s twin we can hope that one of its three planets is enough like Terra to make us welcome.”
“Three planets-I only see two.”
“Other’s behind Sol II now. We’ve seen her-in fact Tas and I have had a week to chart this system since the ship controls roused us. Give us another day and we shall pick out the world we want and land the ship—”
Three worlds-and a yellow sun. Dard wished that he knew more, that his education was better than a collection of scraps and patches. Back on earth under Pax it was a feat to be able to read and write-he had entertained some pride in his learning. But now-he felt that to be nothing at all!
“Why did you waken me?” he asked. “I can’t help with the ship. You said that Kordov and you—” He was trying to remember. There had been a third man to be aroused early-
Kimber’s attention was again given to the screen. Now he answered quickly: