"Maybe ve can find somevun who knows," suggested Dyann.
Ray thought of landing on a planet and asking a winged, three-headed monster, "Pardon me, do you know which way Sol is?" To which the monster would doubtless reply, "Sorry, I'm a stranger here myself." He chuckled wryly. They'd encountered a difficulty which all the brave futuristic stories about exploring the Galaxy seemed to have overlooked.
They had headed out in the ecliptic plane, very nearly on a line joining the momentary positions of Jupiter and Neptune. That didn't help much, though, in a boat never meant for interplanetary flight and thus carrying only the ephemerides of the Jovian System. Presumably they had gone in a straight line, so that one of the zodiacal constellations was at their back and should still be recognizable, but the high-velocity distortions of the outside view had precluded anyone's noticing which stars had been where.
Ray floated over to the port and looked out at the eerie magnificence of unknown space. "If I'd been a Boy Scout," he lamented, "I might know the constellations. The thing to do is to head back toward any one which looks halfway familiar, since that must be the one which was at our stern. But I only know Orion and the Big Dipper." He looked at Urushkidan with accusing eyes. "You're the great astrophysicist. Can't you tell one star from another?"
"Certainly not," said the Martian huffily. "No astrophysicist eber looks at de stars if he can help it."
"Oh, you want a con—con—star-picture?" asked Dyann innocently.
Ray said, "I mean one we know, as we see the stars from Sol, or from Centauri. You're nice to look at, honey, but right now I can't help wishing you Varannians were a little more intellectual."
"Oh, I know the stars," said Dyann. "Every noble learns them. Let me see—" She floated around the chamber, from port to port, staring out and muttering to herself. "Oh, yes. There is Kunatha the Hunter-threatened-by-woman-devourin-monster. Not changed much."
"Huh?" Ray and Urushkidan pushed themselves over beside her. "By gosh," said the Earthling, "it does look like Virgo, I think, or one of 'em. Dyann, I love you to pieces."
"Let's get home qvick, then," she beamed. "I vant to be on a planet." During the outward flight she had been somewhat discomforted by discovering the erotic importance of gravity.