Read Online Captive of the Centaurianess by Poul Anderson - Free Book Online

astronomical tables. Since she had passed close to Neptune, or whatever globe that was, she had presumably been more or less in the ecliptic plane. Therefore some of the zodiacal constellations, those from which she had moved away, ought to be recognizable, though doubtless distorted. Ordinarily an untrained eye might have been unable to identify any pattern, so numerous are the stars visible in space. However, after a week without cleaning, the ports here were greasy and grimy enough to dim the light as much as Earth's atmosphere does.
    Nevertheless Ray was baffled. "If I'd been a Boy Scout," he lamented, "I might know the skies. As is, all I can pick out are Orion and the Big Dipper, and I've no idea how they lie with respect to the zodiac or anything else." He gave Urushkidan an accusing glance. "You're the great astrophysicist. Can't you tell one star from another?"
    "Certainly not," replied the Martian. "No astrophysicist eber looks at te stars if he can help it."
    "Oh, you vant to find the con—con—star-pictures?" Dyann asked.
    "Yes, we have to," Ray explained. "Familiar ones that we can steer by. You're quite a girl in your way, honey, but I do wish you were more of an intellectual."
    "Vy, of course I know the heavens," she assured him. "How vould I ever find my vay around, huntin or raidin, othervise? And they are not very different in the Solar System. I learned your pictures for fun, vile I vas on Earth." She floated around the chamber from port to port, peering and muttering. " Haa-ai , yes, yonder are Kunatha the Qveen and Skalk the Consort . . . not much chanyed except—" she chuckled coarsely— "it is even more clear to see here than at home that they are begettin the Heir. You Earthlins take a section right out of the middle betveen those two and make a figure you call . . . m-m-m . . . ah, yes, Virgo."
    "And you can tell us how the rest are arranged, and steer us till they have the right configurations?" Ray exclaimed. "Dyann, I love you!"
    "Then let's get home fast," she beamed. "I vant to be on a planet." During the outward flight she had been discomfited at discovering the erotic importance of gravity.
    "Control your optimism, Tallantyre," Urushkidan said dourly. "Trying to nabigate by eyeball alone, wit only a barbarian's information to go on, we may perhaps find te general galactic region we want, but tereafter we could cast about at random until our food is gone and we starbe to deat."
    "Oh, I know the constellations close," Dyann said, "and I know how to take stellar measurements. It vill not be hard to make a few simple instruments, like for measurin angles accurately, that I can use."
    " You? " the Martian screeched. "How in Nebukadashtabu can you have learned such tings?"
    "Every noble in Kathantuma does, for to practice the—vat do you call it?—astroloyee. It is needful for plannin battles and ven to sow grain and marriage dates and everythin."
    "Do you mean to say you are an . . . an ... an astrologer?"
    "Of course. I thought you vere too, but it seems you Solarians are more backvard than I supposed. Vould you like me to cast your horoscope?"
    "Well," said Ray helplessly, "I guess it's up to you to pilot us back, Dyann."
    "Sure," she laughed. "Anchors aveigh!"
    Urushkidan retched. "Brought home by an astrologer. Te ignominy of it all."
     
    Somehow Ray got his shipmates herded into seats, the vessel aimed according to Dyann's instructions, and the drive started. Given the modifications they had made, they could accelerate the whole distance and then stop almost instantly. The passage should not be long.
    Except, of course, for the time-consuming nuisance of frequent halts en route to take navigational sights. Ray pondered this in the next couple of days, while he constructed the instruments Dyann required. That task was comparatively simple, demanding precise workmanship but no original thought to speak of. His engineering talent had free play; if nothing else, the problem took his attention