"Our velocity is approaching zero. We'll be within range of the second cruiser's blasters in two more minutes."
Harding spoke again to him:
"We'll go into the warp now. Do not alter the deceleration or the course of the ship while we're in the warp."
"I won't," he said.
There was a faint mutter from the auxiliary speaker as Harding gave some instructions to Garvin. Engle took a last look at the viewscreen; at blue-green Earth looming large in the center, Orion and Sirius glittering above it and the sun burning bright and yellow on the right. It was a scene he had observed many times before, all very familiar and normal—
The chronometer touched 11:50 and normalcy vanished.
Earth and sun and stars fled away from him, altering in appearance as they went, shrinking, dwindling. The seas and continents of Earth erupted and shook and boiled before Earth faded and disappeared. The sun changed from yellow to green to blue, to a tiny point of bright violet light that raced away into the blackness filling the screen and faded and disappeared as Earth had done.
Then the viewscreen was black, utterly, completely, dead black. And the communicator that had connected him with Ground Control was silent, without the faintest whisper of background sound or space static.
In the silence the voice of Harding as he spoke to Garvin came through the speaker; puzzled, incredulous, almost shocked:
"Our velocity couldn't have been that great—and the sun receded into the ultraviolet!"