"How far?" he asked himself in a half-spoken thought, "—how far have we come?"
here was an instrument that ticked off the seconds in this seemingly timeless void. He pressed a small lever beside it, and, beneath a glass that magnified the readings, there passed the time-tape. Each hour and minute was there; each movement of the controls was indicated; each trifling variation in the power of the generator's blast. Chet made some careful computations and passed the paper to Harkness, who tilted the time-tape recorder that he might see the record.
"Check this, will you, Walt?" Chet was asking. "It is based on the time of our other trip, acceleration assumed as one thousand miles per hour per hour out of air—"
The scientist interrupted; he spoke in English that was carefully precise.
"It should lie directly ahead—the Dark Moon. I have calculated with exactness."
Walter Harkness had snatched up a pair of binoculars. He swung sharply from lookout to lookout while he searched the heavens.
"It's damned lucky for us that you made a slight error," Chet was telling the other.
"Error?" Kreiss challenged. "Impossible!"