But Dusty was not a pilot, and certainly not a pilot of a Marandanian Spacecraft. So the pre-flight checkoff took almost an hour. Nearly ninety-nine percent of the time Dusty was following Gant Nerley's instructions blindly: Is the pilot lamp registering power source showing red or green? Is the spacelock indicator showing closed? Turn the atmosphere control to Internal. Set the autogravity corrector to Controlled. Co-stator circuits to Regulated; antimagnetic response dial to zero; space-coordinate servo control to Stellar Display. Planetary Drive to Automatic Threshold; match the Gravitic Constant to the Power Delivery. Set the Master Control to Pre-flight Warm-up. "Now," said Gant Nerley, "take it slow and easy. Take the 'Tee' bar gently. Find the thumb-buttons and press them both evenly; spread your knees against the paddles under the control panel slowly and press the Force pedal with your right foot. Tell me, what is your trans-atmospheric velocity?" "It says 416." "Too high. Press the Compensator pedal with your left foot until the TAV meter reads 312." "Now." "Hold it that way until the Matter Per Cubic Meter indicator drops below the red line." "The TAV meter is dropping below 312." "Good. Let up on the Compensator pedal and depress the Force pedal more. Keep the TAV meter at 312." "The Matter Per Cubic Meter indicator is below the red line, Gant." "Free the Compensator pedal. Push the Force pedal all the way home and kick it to the right. Now read the Trans-atmospheric velocity meter." "Dropping rapidly." "Good. And the MCPM?" "Dropping rapidly." "Excellent. Spread the knee-paddles wide and lock them. Have you a reading yet on the Space Velocity Meter?" "Just getting off the peg." "Um--it is a little early. But that's all right. It will arrive in due time. Keep an eye on the Foreign Body Indicator, Dusty. Any reading?" "No." "Good. Don't touch the 'Tee' bar, Dusty. That's the steering mechanism and it is in neutral. Is there any indication on the viewpanel yet?" "Not yet." "Haven't enough velocity yet," said Gant. "But when it appears, it will look like a star map. Now, the central cross-hair is the point of aim of your spacecraft. If the star you want lies, say, to the upper left, move the 'Tee' bar forward and to your left. That will swing the ship in that direction and you can line up the drive with the target. Also, since angular position is important when moving in three free dimensions, twisting the crossbar of the 'Tee' will cause the ship to rotate on its axis. The map will turn in the direction, apparently, but it is really the ship turning. That is--" "I'm beginning to get a presentation now," said Dusty. "Good. Dim and reddish, isn't it?" "Yes."