Gavin followed the girl up the ladder, his palms slippery with sweat on the cold bars. He wasn't sure whether he'd fooled Villanowski or not. They entered the mess room, helped themselves to coffee. He realized the girl hadn't uttered a word since the little death. He saw she was regarding him with a half-frightened, half-perplexed frown.
"How did the little death affect you?" he asked her.
"I had a dream. At least, I think it was." She bit her lip.
"What was it about?"
"Something in the future." She laughed. "It's silly, isn't it, to be so frightened at a dream. Especially one so fantastic."
"I don't know," Gavin replied dryly. "Mine didn't leave me so comfortable ... but you haven't told me what yours was."
Nadia rubbed her temples. "I dreamed we were all captured on Jupiter and sent to the Penal Colony." She laughed at herself. "It's so silly, because you—you"—again she gave a low laugh—"you were a T.I.S. agent!"
Gavin felt his mouth go dry. He stared at her in consternation. He moistened his lips and started to ask for more particulars, when the chief astrogator entered the messroom.
The Nova's astrogator nodded perfunctorily at them and went across to the solar chart. Very deliberately, he pulled out the pin marking the Nova's position, moved it across the map to within a week's voyage of Jupiter.
Gavin couldn't believe his eyes. "That's impossible! We weren't unconscious but a few seconds during the little death...."