Charters laughed.
The two were alone in the control room. The other techs, for once all awake at the same time, were busily checking their instruments, each in his own department.
Braun was suffering from reaction. In an emergency, he could function superbly. But with nothing to do, he brooded.
It was definitely the raw end of nowhere, though the instruments and record tapes called it by a variety of mathematical equations. According to the figures, the Venture IV had made an interesting voyage, turning itself completely inside out several times at irregular intervals, smashing all existing speed and distance records and extending the tenuous boundaries of man's interstellar and intergalactic survey by a quarter million light-years. Other ships might have gone further, but if they had, no one knew about it. They had vanished into some limbo of space—
Mass proximity alarms blared through the corridors and cubicles of the Venture IV.
Nerves, already tensed, vibrated like thin glass, ready to disintegrate from resonance.
There should have been no mass anywhere near. Not even a grain of cosmic dust.
Blackness stretched in all directions, relieved only by the distant, dimly glowing smudges of galaxies. Assembled in the control room, Venture IV's company discussed the mystery. No conclusion was possible. Whatever was affecting the mass detectors lay dead ahead, still out of vision range, and not even showing in the telescopic relays.
By vote, it was decided to investigate. The Venture IV operated on democratic principles. Responsibility like risk was shared equally, and "Captain" Charters had one vote.