mplication sank in. "Wait a minute,"
he said. "What do you mean, _centuries_?"

Brownie stared at his shoes. "The atomic piles were almost dead," he
muttered in an apologetic whine. "The ship wasn't going any place,
captain. It was just wandering. Maybe it's wandered for thousands of
years." He took a deep breath, and his eyes met the captain's for a
brief agonized moment. "They don't have Interstellar, sir. Just plain,
simple, slow atomics. Nothing different. They've been traveling for
centuries, and it would have taken them just as long to get back."

The captain's voice was thin, choked. "Are you trying to tell me that
their drive is no different from our own? That a ship has actually
wandered into Interstellar space _without a space drive_?"

Brownie spread his hands helplessly. "Something must have gone wrong.
They must have started off for another planet in their own system, and
something went wrong. They broke into space, and they all died. And the
ship just went on moving. They never intended an Interstellar hop. They
couldn't have. They didn't have the drive for it."

The captain sat back numbly, his face pasty gray. The light had faded in
his eyes now; he sat as though he'd been struck. "You--you couldn't be
wrong? You couldn't have missed anything?"

Brownie's eyes shifted unhappily, and his voice was very faint. "No,
sir."

The captain stared at them for a long moment, like a stricken child.
Slowly he picked up one of the charts, his mouth working. Then, with a
bitter roar, he threw it in Sabo's face. "Get out of here! Take this
garbage and get out! And get the men to their stations. We're here to
watch Saturn, and by god, we'll watch Saturn!" He turned away, a hand
over his eyes, and they heard his choking breath as they left the
cabin.

Slowly, Brownie walked out into the corridor, started down toward his
cabin, with Sabo silent at his heels. He looked up once at the mate's
heavy face, a look of pleading in his dark brown eyes, and then opened
the door to his quarters. Like a cat, Sabo was in the room before him,
dragging him in, slamming the door. He caught the little man by the neck
with one savage hand, and shoved him unceremoniously against the door,
his voice a vicious whisper. "_All right, talk! Let's have it now!_"

Brownie choked, his eyes bulging, his face turning gray in the dim light
of the cabin. "Johnny! Let me down! What's the matter? You're choking
me, Johnny--"

The mate's eyes w