"Sure," Wade replied, "but I like Earth! If only we hadn't all passed out! What caused that, Arcot?" Arcot shrugged. "I'm sure I don't know. My only theory is that the double gravitational field, plus our own power field, produced a sort of cross-product that effected our brains. "At any rate, here we are." "We certainly are," agreed Morey. "We can't possibly back track; what we have to do is identify our own universe. What identifying features does it have that will enable us to recognize it? "Our Galaxy has two 'satellites', the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds. If we spent ten years photographing and studying and comparing with the photographs we already have, we might find it. We know that system will locate the Galaxy, but we haven't the time. Any other suggestions?" "We came out here to visit planets, didn't we?" asked Arcot. "Here's our chance--and our only chance--of getting home, as far as I can see. We can go to any galaxy in the neighborhood--within twenty or thirty million light years--and look for a planet with a high degree of civilization. "Then we'll give them the photographs we have, and ask them if they've any knowledge of a galaxy with two such satellites. We just keep trying until we find a race which has learned through their research. I think that's the easiest, quickest, and most satisfactory method. What do you think?" It was the obvious choice, and they all agreed. The next proposition was to select a galaxy. "We can go to any one we wish," said Morey, "but we're now moving at thirty thousand miles per second; it would take us quite a while to slow down, stop, and go in the other direction. There's a nice, big galactic nebula right in front of us, about three days away--six million light years. Any objections to heading for that?" The rest looked at the glowing point of the nebula. Out in space, a star is a hard, brilliant, dimensionless point of light. But a nebula glows with a faint mistiness; they are so far away that they never have any bright glow, such as stars have, but they are so vast, their dimensions so great, that even across millions of light years of space they appear as tiny glowing discs with faint, indistinct edges. As the men looked out of the clear lux metal windows, they saw the tiny blur of light on the soft black curtain of space. It was as good a course as any, and the ship's own inertia recommended it; they had only to redirect the ship with greater accuracy. Setting the damaged gyroscopes came first, however. There were a number of things about the ship that needed readjustment and replacement after the strain of escaping from the giant star. After they had made a thorough inspection Arcot said: