Standish's teeth came down hard on his pipe stem. He was lost! Hopelessly lost! A solitary spark of life in a man-made projectile, wandering the immensities of the Universe.
Mechanically, the Earthman set the automatic directionscope for a larger spot of light far ahead and threw in the massmeter which would effectually warn him of any body within collision range in his path. Had the liner pilot paid attention to that dial, he reflected, the crash might have been avoided.
Stars paraded, swung past. The Big Dipper flamed away, curiously changed in outlines. Or was it the Big Dipper? Standish didn't know.
Material thoughts supplanted cosmic ones then. There was work to be done, ghoulish work which common decency demanded he perform. The dead must be disposed of.
It was a hard task, and h
