"Not rioting--praying more likely," corrected the man at the door.
"That'll keep 'em out of trouble," Avery flipped back, his pencil
moving feverishly across a scratch pad.
Wyckoff called across the clatter of the spitter, now operating with
a ferocious din, "What'll we tell 'em, Avery? They've got to know
something or there will be a riot or worse. Is there really any danger?"
"There's always danger," Avery was growling again, "when some
unmitigated unweaned engineers on an unmentionable planet cook up a
foolproof system of astrogation."
He handed the scratch pad to Jack White and waved a hand at A
calculator. "Take off these and add them into the firing times. I'll
send Wilman and Adams up and put them on the intercom for porthole
reports during firing. I'm going with Sam and stop the rush for the
life-boats we don't have."
Donning his jak, he arose and kicked his way defiantly through the
welter of paper and stamped free of it as he reached the door. He
hurried up the corridor to the elevator, eight or ten paces in advance
of Wyckoff, and jabbed the button. "Sam my boy," he barked impatiently,
waiting for the car, "the worst cause of panic is panic. I've been on
the market and I know!"
* * * * *
The elevator door slid shut and Wyckoff repeated his earlier question,
"Is it really bad, El?"
"Probably nothing a little prompt action can't fix," Avery replied.
"It's going to take two more turnovers, though. You know we haven't any
jets in the nose to amount to anything, and we'll have to tack back
across our charted course like bats out of you know where. Carruthers
will have to whip up a new batch of charts for the sky-watchers, too,
but we can still outsmart those idiots on earth and land on Venus _if_
we want to."
"If we _want_ to?" The car stopped and the two got out.
"I said if we want to, and that's what I meant," Avery replied tartly,
heading up the Saloon floor corridor. "I'll bet most of us didn't want
or expect much more than to cut loose from our old lives and problems;
and that's completely accomplished. Most of us just wanted to crawl
away and die with some decent measure of privacy. We can do that, too,
if we want to."
Through the thin panel of the saloon door the music came, singing
weakly at first, then growing, tremulously....
Eternal Father, God of Grace,
Whose hand hath set the stars in place,
"We've changed our minds, Elbert," said Samuel Wyckoff.
Who biddst the planets turn and sweep
To Thine appointed orbits keep,
Oh hear us when to Thee we cry
For those in peril in the sky!
A moment's silence through the door. Wyckoff pushed it open for Avery
and followed him into the room.
The hundreds of people standing in the room, looking at Captain
Daneshaw in the center, did not notice the two until they had almost
reached him. Hundreds of breaths, thousands of muscles clenched, they
awaited the word. Avery gave one furtive, almost guilty look around
at the staring faces; then, his jauntiness returning, he took the
last few steps to the captain's side. Tim Daneshaw raised his hand,
unnecessarily, for silence. Avery spoke.
"With your assistance, we shall land on Venus on schedule."
A great sigh from hundreds of lips.
Avery continued, "We are off course because of a factor that was
overlooked in building the _Colonia_. But there is no reason why we
can't meet our new home when she gets there. There is no reason why we
can't do a better job than the engineers and Space Commission expected
of us." _No_ reason. There were more ways of outsmarting young fools
than tying their feet with high tension wire. He gestured at Sam
Wyckoff. "Tell 'em what to do next, trouble shooter."
Wyckoff took up, "There will be two more turnovers, the first within a
couple of hours, I expect. You've just been through one and know what
to do as far as remaining in your cabins with a good supply of solid
food in your kits and plenty of packaged water. As Mr. Avery expresses
it, we shall have to run to catch up with our course, so there will
be acceleration, too. The gravitators will be switched on again
immediately after turnover, but, since acceleration may be intermittent
the ship may seem bumpy until a constant acceleration has been reached.
All of you who are not essential crew or involved with food service or
care of animals had better go for rations at once and then strap into
your bunks with a sedative and maybe a good book. Food services go hand
out ration packs and report back here. Crew members still in the hall
meet with Mr. Avery by the stage." He paused for breath. "And before
you walk not run to the nearest food hatch," (tension in the Great
Saloon was a new thing, alert, responsive), "let's have three rousing
cheers for a better man with a calculator than any on earth! Hip!
Hip!..."
"Hoo-ray!" Deafening.
"Hip!... Hip!..."
"Hoo-ray!"
The third cheer was a wave of noise that had no beginning but dimmed
suddenly when a woman near the captain folded her hands and bowed her
head. The crowd followed the example like one being.
Avery, too, bowed his head for a moment, fierce triumph fading from
his face; then he strode down the floor to the stage as the throng
moved in orderly departure to the doors around the room, a man here and
there following him.
Tim Daneshaw grasped Sam Wyckoff's hand with a quick, friendly shake.
"_Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be_," he quoted musingly;
and both men followed the little line leading the way to Avery and
action.