 Where was the Quest III coming home from?
In the last hours the star ahead had grown brighter by many magnitudes, and had changed its color from a dazzling blue through white to the normal yellow, of a GO sun. That was the Doppler effect as the star's radial velocity changed relative to the Quest III , as for forty hours the ship had decelerated. They had seen many such stars come near out of the galaxy's glittering backdrop, and had seen them dwindle, turn red and go out as the Quest III drove on its way once more, lashed by despair toward the speed of light, leaving behind the mockery of yet another solitary and lifeless luminary unaccompanied by worlds where men might dwell. But now unwonted excitement possessed the hundred-odd members of the Quest III's crew. For the Quest III was coming home; the sun ahead was the Sun, whose rays had warmed their lives' beginning. The great chamber, a full cross-section of the vessel, had been at first a fuel hold. Eyes lifted from the vision screens to interrogate Knof Llud; he met them with an impassive countenance, and announced quietly, "We've sighted Earth." After all, it's only been nine hundred years." It won't be the same world we left, the world we knew and fitted in...." He had already set up on the calculator a course that would carry them to Earth. From his private office-cabin, he sent a message to Chief Astronomer Zost Relyul to notify him as soon as Earth's surface features became clear; then he sat idle, alone with his thoughts. As the Quest III's fuel stores and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the strength had gone out of him. That was the foreshortening along the time axis of a space ship approaching the speed of light. Weeks and months had passed for the Quest III in interstellar flight while years and decades had raced by on the home world. It was one he had made shortly after leaving Procyon, end of the first leg of the trip. "One light-day out from Procyon, the thirty-third day by ship's time since leaving Earth. "Our visit to Procyon drew a blank. If Procyon had possessed a habitable planet, we could have returned after an absence of not much over twenty years Earth time. We go on to Capella; its spectrum, so like our own Sun's, beckons.
 An expedition
 A dying star  Procyon  Capella  An expedition