e
business on the air! We'll have audience-identification up to a record!
Everybody on Earth will feel like he's here with us, sharing our
problems!"

Jones said irritably:

"You don't get it! We're lost! We can't check our speed without knowing
where we are and how far we've come! We can't find out what the ship
will do when we can't find out what it's done! Don't you see?"

Cochrane said patiently:

"I know! But we're in touch with Luna through the Dabney field that got
us here! It transmitted radiation before, faster than light. It's
transmitting voice and pictures now. Now we set up a television show
which pays for our astrogation and lets the world sit in on the prettier
aspects of our travels. Hm.... How long before you can sit down on a
planet, after you have all the navigational aids of--say--the four best
observatories on Earth to help you? I'll arrange for a sponsor--."

He went happily down the stairs again. This was a spiral stair, and he
zestfully spun around it as he went to the next deck below. At the
bottom he called up to Babs:

"Babs! Get Bell and Alicia Keith and come along to take dictation! I'm
going to need some legal witnesses for the biggest deal in the history
of advertising, made at several times the speed of light!"

And he went zestfully to the communicator to set it up.

And time passed. Data arrived, which at once solved Jones' and the
pilot's problem of where they were and how far they had come--it was,
actually, 178.3 light-years--and they spent an hour making further tests
and getting further determinations, and then they got a destination.

They stopped in space to extrude from the airlock a small package which
expanded into a forty-foot plastic balloon with a minute atomic battery
attached to it. The plastic was an electric conductor. It was a
field-plate of the Dabney field. It took over the field from Earth and
maintained it. It provided a second field for the ship to maintain. The
ship, then, could move at any angle from the balloon. The Dabney field
stretched 178.3 light-years through emptiness to the balloon, and then
at any desired direction to the ship.

The ship's rockets thrust again--and the booster-circuit came into play.
There were maneuverings. A second balloon was put out in space.

At 8:30 Central U. S. Time, on a period relinquished by other
advertisers--bought out--a new program went on the air. It was a
half-hour show, sponsored by the Intercity Credit Co