"When they started to argue, I just told them it was an emergency, and
if they didn't let us see any records they had, we would file their
refusal against claims that might come up later. They quit arguing.
We'll have the records as soon as we reconvert."

* * * * *

The star that they were seeking was a long distance from the current
location of the _Lancet_. The ship was in Koenig drive for hours before
it reconverted, and even Dal was beginning to feel the first pangs of
drive-sickness before they felt the customary jolting vibration of the
change to normal space, and saw bright stars again in the viewscreen.

The star called 31 Brucker was close then. It was indeed a red giant;
long tenuous plumes of gas spread out for hundreds of millions of miles
on all sides of its glowing red core. This mammoth star did not look so
cold now, as they stared at it in the viewscreen, yet among the family
of stars it was a cold, dying giant with only a few moments of life left
on the astronomical time scale. From the _Lancet_'s position, no
planets at all were visible to the naked eye, but with the telescope
Jack soon found two inside the star's envelope of gas and one tiny one
outside. They would have to be searched for, and the one that they were
hoping to reach located before centering and landing maneuvers could be
begun.

Already the radio was chattering with two powerful signals coming in.
One came from the Galactic Confederation headquarters on Garv II; the
other was a good clear signal from very close range, unquestionably
beamed to them from the planet in distress.