Once ZORAC had introduced itself to all the newcomers, the serious business of the day resumed once more with Storrel conducting a more productive dialogue with Garuth, the Ganymean mission commander. From the discussion it appeared that the Shapieron had indeed come from another star system to which it had gone long before for the purpose of conducting a scientific mission of some complexity. A catastrophe had befallen the expedition and forced them to depart in haste, without time to prepare for a long voyage; the situation was exacerbated by technical problems relating to the ship itself, though their precise nature remained obscure. The voyage had been long and was beset with difficulties, resulting in the predicament that the giants now found themselves facing, and which had already been described to the Earthmen. Garuth concluded by stressing again the poor physical and mental condition of his people, and their need to find somewhere to land their ship in order to recuperate and appraise their situation.

Throughout the proceedings, a running commentary on both sides of the conversation was radioed back to the crew remaining on the bus, whose Ganymean relay gave Shannon and the others on the bridge of the J5 a minute-by-minute report of what was happening.

Even before Garuth had finished speaking, Shannon had contacted Ganymede Main Base and instructed the commander there to begin preparations to receive a shipload of unexpected and very weary guests.

Chapter Seven

"One of the other Earthmen has just instructed me to get lost and switched his unit off," ZORAC said. "I could only do that by taking the Shapieron away into space and I'm certain that he didn't intend that. What did he mean?"

Hunt grinned to himself as he allowed his head to sink back into the pillow while he contemplated the ceiling. He had been back on board Jupiter Five for several hours and was relaxing in his cabin after a strenuous day while experimenting further with his Ganymean communications kit.

"It's an Earth saying," he replied. "It doesn't mean what the words mean literally. It's what people sometimes say when they're not interested in listening to somebody. Probably he was tired and needed to sleep. But don't you say it when you talk to Earthmen. It conveys irritation and is a little insulting."

"I see. Okay. Is there a word or phrase for a saying that doesn't mean what it says literally?"

Hunt sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. Suddenly he had nothing but admiration for the patience of school teachers.

"I suppose we'd call it a figure of speech," he said.

"But surely speech is formed from words, not figures, or have I made a mistake somewhere?"

"No, you're right. That's just another saying."

"A figure of speech is a figure of speech then. Right?"

"Yes. ZORAC, I'm getting tired too. Could you save any more questions about English until I'm ready for it again? There are some questions I'd still like to ask you."

"Otherwise you'll instruct me to get lost and switch off?"

"Correct."

"Okay. What are your questions?"

Hunt hoisted his shoulders up against the end of his bunk and clasped his hands behind his head. After a moment's reflection, he was ready. "I'm interested in the star that your ship came from. You said that it had a system of several planets."

"Yes."

"Your ship came from one of those planets?"

"Yes."

"Did all the Ganymean people move from Minerva and go live on that planet a long time ago?"

"No. Only three large ships went and their carried-ships. Also there were three very large machines that propelled themselves like spaceships. The Ganymeans went there to test a scientific idea. They did not go there to live. All came back in the Shapieron but many have died."

"When you went to the star, where did you travel from?"

"From Minerva."

"Where were the rest of the Ganymean people--the ones who didn't go with you to the star?"

"They remained on Minerva, naturally. The work to be done at the star needed only a small number of scientific people."

Hunt's incredulity could no longer be contained. The thing that he had been beginning to suspect for some time was really true.

"How long ago was it when you left the star?" he asked, his voice catching slightly as he formed the words.

"Approximately twenty-five million Earth years ago," ZORAC informed him.

For a long time Hunt said nothing. He just lay there, his mind struggling to comprehend the enormity of what he had learned. Just a few hours before he had been standing face to face with beings who had been alive long before the species called Homo sapiens had ever begun to emerge. And they were still alive now, and had been through the unimaginable epochs between. The very thought of it was stupefying.

He did not imagine for one moment that this could represent anything like a normal Ganymean life span and he guessed it to be the result of relativistic time-dilation. But to produce an effect of such magnitude they must have sustained a phenomenal velocity for an incredible length of time. What could possibly have induced the Ganymeans to journey the vast distance that this implied? And, equally strange, why should they willingly inflict upon themselves what they must have known would be a permanent forfeiture of their world, their way of life and all the things that were familiar to them? What significance could their expedition have had, since nothing they could have achieved at their destination could possibly have affected their civilization in any way whatsoever--not with that discrepancy in time scales? But hadn't Garuth said something about everything not having gone according to plan?

Having sorted his thoughts into something resembling order once more, Hunt had another question. "How far from the Sun was this star?"

"The distance that light would travel in nine point three Earth years," ZORAC answered.

The situation was getting crazy. Allowing for the speed that would have been necessary to produce the time-dilation, such a journey should have taken hardly any time at all . . . astronomically speaking.

"Did the Ganymeans know that they would return after twenty-five million years?" Hunt asked, determined to get to the bottom of it.

"When they left the star, they knew. But when they left Minerva to go to the star, they did not know. They did not have a reason to believe that the journey from the star would be longer than the journey to the star."

"How long did it take them to get there?"

"Measured from the Sun, twelve point one years."

"And the journey back again took twenty-five million?"

"Yes. They could not avoid traveling very fast. I believe that the results of this are familiar to you. They orbited the Sun far away many times."

Hunt replied with the obvious question. "Why didn't they just slow down?"

"They could not."

"Why?"

ZORAC seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second.

"The electrical machines could not be operated. The points-that-destroy-all-things and move in circles could not be stopped. The space-and-time-joining blendings could not be unbent."

"I don't understand that," Hunt said, frowning.

"I can't be more clear without asking more questions about English," ZORAC warned him.

"Leave it for now." Hunt remembered the stir caused by speculations about the propulsion system of the Ganymean ship beneath Pithead, which dated from about the same period as the Shapieron. Although the UNSA scientists and engineers could not be certain, many of them suspected that motion had been produced not by reactive thrust, but by an artificially induced zone of localized space-time distortion into which the vessel "fell" continuously. Hunt felt that such a principle could allow the kind of sustained acceleration needed for the Shapieron to attain the speeds implied by ZORAC's account. No doubt other scientists were putting similar questions to ZORAC; he would discuss the matter with them tomorrow, he decided, and not press the matter further for the time being.