"I'm going to remain on Terra and run Terran Electric like a model
company," he said. "That'll be our base."
"Right. Except for a bit of research along specified lines, you will
do nothing. Your job will be to act apologetic for your misdeeds. You
will grovel on the floor before any authority, and beseech the legal
profession to accept you once more. I will need your help, there. You
are to establish yourself in the good graces of the Interplanetary
Patent Office, and report to me any applications that may be of
interest. The research that Terran Electric will conduct will be along
innocuous lines. The real research will be in a secret laboratory. The
one in the Melanortis Country. Selected men will work there, and the
Terran Electric fleet of cargo-carriers will carry the material needed.
My main failure was not to have provided a means of knowing what the
worlds were doing. I'll have that now, and I shall not be defeated
again."
"We'll say that one together!" said Kingman. He flipped open a large
book and set the autopilot from a set of figures. The _Black Widow_
turned gently and started to run for Terra at two G.
* * * * *
Walt Franks frowned at the memorandum in his hand. "Look, Don, are we
ever going to get to work on that deal with Keg Johnson?"
"Uh-huh," answered Don, without looking up.
"He's serious. Transplanet is getting the edge, and he doesn't like it."
"Frankly, I don't like dabbling in stuff like that either. But Keg's
an old friend, and I suppose that's how a guy gets all glommed up on
projects, big business deals, and so forth. We'll be going in directly.
Why the rush?"
"A bit of personal business on Mars which can best be done at the same
time, thus saving an additional trip."
"O.K.," said Don idly. "Might as well get it over with. Date with
Christine Baler?"
"Sure," grinned Franks.
Actually, it was less than an hour before the _Relay Girl_ went out of
the South End Landing Stage, turned, and headed for Mars. Packing to
the Channings was a matter of persuading Arden not to take everything
but the drapes in the apartment along with her, while for Walt Franks
it was a matter of grabbing a trunkful of instruments and spare parts.
Space travel is a matter of waiting for days in the confines of a small
bubble of steel. Just waiting. For the scenery is unchanging all the
way from Sol to Pluto--and is the same scenery that can be seen from
the viewports of Venus Equilateral. Walt enjoyed his waiting time by
tinkering; having nothing to do would have bored him, and so he took
with him enough to keep him busy during the trip.
At two Terran gravities, the velocity of the _Relay Girl_ built up bit
by bit and mile by mile until they were going just shy of one thousand
miles per second. This occurred an hour before turnover, which would
take place at the twenty-third hour of flight.
And at that time there occurred a rarity. Not an impossibility like the
chances of collision with a meteor--those things happen only once in a
lifetime, and Channing had had his collision. Nor was it as remote as
getting a royal flush on the deal. It happened, not often, but it did
happen to ships occasionally.
Another ship passed within detector range.
The celestial globe shimmered faintly and showed a minute point at
extreme range. Automatic marker spheres appeared concentrically within
the celestial globe and colures and diameters marked the globe off into
octants.
Bells rang briefly, and the automatic meteor circuits decided that
that object was not approaching the _Relay Girl_. Then they relaxed.
Their work was done until another object came within range for them to
inspect. They were no longer interested, and they forgot about the
object with the same powers of complete oblivion that they would have
exerted on a meteor of nickel and iron.
They were mechanically incapable of original thought. So the object, to
them, was harmless.
Channing looked up at the luminescent spot, sought the calibration
spheres, made a casual observation, and forgot about it. To him it was
a harmless meteor.
Even the fact that his own velocity was a thousand miles per second,
and the object's velocity was the same, coming to them on a one hundred
and seventy degree course and due to pass within five thousand miles
did not register. Their total velocity of two thousand miles did not
register just because of that rarity with which ships pass within
detector range, while meteors are encountered often.
Had Channing been thinking about the subject in earnest, he would have
known--for it is only man, with all too little time, who uses such
velocities. The universe, with eternity in which to work her miracle,
seldom moves in velocities greater than forty or fifty miles per second.
Channing forgot it, and as the marker-spheres switched to accommodate
the object, he turned to more important things.
In the other ship, Hellion Murdoch frowned. He brightened, then, and
depressed the plunger that energized his solar beam and projector.
He did not recognize the oncoming object for anything but a meteor,
either; and _his_ desire was to find out how his invention worked at
top speeds.