ntest possible idea of where you really are, _plus_,
_minus_, or lateral; and if you don't get yourselves straightened out
before we get to W41, I'm going to make a report on my own account that
will jar some of you birds loose from your upper teeth!" He unplugged
with a vicious jerk, and turned to the pilot with a grin.

"Guess that'll hold him for a while, won't it?"

"He'll report us, sure," remonstrated Breckenridge. The older man was
plainly ill at ease at this open defiance of the supposedly infallible
check-stations.

"Not that baby," returned the computer confidently. "I'll bet you a
small farm against a plugged nickel that right now he's working his
goniometer so hard that it's pivots are getting hot. He'll sneak back
into position as soon as he can calculate his results, and pretend he's
always been there."

"The others will be all right, then, probably, by the time we get to
them?"

"Gosh, no--you're unusually dumb today, Breck. He won't tell anybody
anything--he doesn't want to be the only goat, does he?"

"Oh, I see. How could you dope this out, with only the recorder charts?"

"Because I know the kind of stuff you pilots are--and those humps are
altogether too big to be accounted for by anything I know about you.
Another thing--the next station, P6, I think is keeping himself all x.
If so, when you corrected for E2, which was wrong, it'd throw you all
off on P6, which was right, and so on--a bad hump at almost every
check-station. See?"

* * * * *

True to prediction, the pilot ray of P6 came in almost upon the exact
center of the micrometer screen, and Breckenridge smiled in relief as he
began really to enjoy the trip.

"How do we check on chronometers?" asked P6 when Stevens had been
introduced. "By my time you seem to be about two and a half seconds
_plus_?"

"All x--two points four seconds plus--we're riding on 981.286
centimeters, to allow for the reversal and for minor detours. Bye."

"All this may have been coincidence, Breck, but we'll find out pretty
quick now," the computer remarked when the flying vessel was nearing
the third check-station. "Unless I'm all out of control we'll check in
almost fourteen seconds minus on W41, and we may not even find him on
the center block of the screen."

When he plugged in W41 was on the block, but was in the extreme upper
right corner. They checked in thirteen and eight-tenths seconds minus on
the station, and a f