Actually there was something strange about the few observations he'd made. He had reconstructed their path to the best of his ability--not a bad guess since no records had been kept. At the time they had left Sol they hadn't been heading directly toward the Centauris. Nona must have used their tangential motion to take them out of the system as fast as she could and later had looped back toward their present destination. The sketchy charts Docchi had, indicated the Centauris by plus or minus a few degrees, all the accuracy he could expect from the telescope. It was in the stars themselves that he had detected changes he couldn't account for. At the far side a woman stood. Jordan nodded to her. "I wasn't asked for my opinion about all this," she said defiantly. "I don't like it. I want to go back." Jordan cocked his head humorously. "You should have told the guards this while they were here. They'd have been glad to take you with them." "I certainly wouldn't leave with them," she said in surprise. "Look how they acted while they were here." "I'm afraid you're out of luck. We can't turn back because of you." "Don't tell me we're marooned here," said the woman vehemently. "The guards left a couple of scout ships, didn't they? Why can't we take those back to Earth?" "For the same reason _they_ didn't," said Jordan patiently. "The range of the scouts is limited, it wouldn't reach then and it won't do it now." "Pshaw," said the woman. "You're just arguing. Docchi said the gravity generator in each ship could be changed to a drive without much work--something about adding a little star encyclopedia unit. I think that's what he said." Docchi started. Had he said that? He must have for the woman to have remembered it. He shouldn't have made such a statement, first because it wasn't so. He had made the possibility of return to Earth seem too easy. There was another reason he regretted his rash explanation and it was the opposite of the first: inadvertently he might have blurted out the secret of the drive. It was possible to talk too much. "I'm not the only one," the woman was insisting. She'd found a point and wouldn't let go. "There are plenty of others who feel as I do and they'll say so if they're not afraid. Who wants to go on for years and years, never reaching any place?" "Look at the stars." A voice ahead of Docchi answered her. It was Webber again, the meek little man who never spoke. "I don't _want_ to look at the stars," she said violently. "I never want to see anything but the sun. _Our_ sun. It was good enough for mankind and I certainly don't care to change it." "That's because you don't know," said Webber confidently. "You're afraid and you don't need to be. When I said look at the stars I meant that those ahead of us are brighter than the ones behind. Do you know what that means?"