Channing snarled and thrust the power lever down to the last notch. The
little ship leaped upward under 5-1/2-G, and was gone from sight in
less than a minute.
Arden shook her head. "What was that message you sent to Franks?" she
asked.
"I told him that there was a wild-eyed pirate on the loose, and that he
might make a stab at the Station. We are coming in as soon as we can
get there and to be on the lookout for us on the landing communications
radio, and also for anything untoward in the nature of space vessels."
"Then this is not exactly a shock," said Arden, waving the message from
Murdoch.
"Not exactly," said Channing dryly. "Now look, Arden, you go to sleep.
This'll take hours and hours, and gabbing about it will only lay you
out cold."
"I feel fine," objected Arden.
"I know, but that's the gravanol, not you. The tape will keep you
intact, and the gravanol will keep you awake without pain or nausea.
But you can't get something for nothing, Arden, and when that gravanol
wears off, you'll spend ten times as long with one tenth of the trouble
you might have had. So make it easy for yourself now and later you'll
be glad that you aren't worse."
The sky blackened, and Channing knew that they were free in space. Give
them another fifteen minutes and the devil himself couldn't find them.
With no flight plan scheduled and no course posted, they might as well
have been in the seventeenth dimension. As they emerged from the thin
atmosphere, there was a fleeting flash of fire from several miles to
the East, but Channing did not pay particular attention to it. Arden
looked through a telescope, and said that she thought that she saw a
spaceship circling, but that she could not be sure.
Whatever it was, nothing came of it.
* * * * *
The trip out to the Station was a monotonous series of uneventful
hours, proceeding along one after the other. They dozed and slept most
of the time, eating sparingly and doing nothing that was not absolutely
necessary.
Turnabout was accomplished and then the deceleration began, equally
long and equally monotonous. It was equally inactive. Channing tried
to plan, but it failed because he could not plan without talking and
discussing the affair with his men; too much depended upon their
co-operation. He fell into a morose, futile feeling that made itself
evident in grousing; Arden tried to jolly him, but Don's usually
bubbling spirit was doused too deep. Also, Arden herself was none too
happy, and she failed to convince herself, which is necessary before
one can convince anyone else of anything.
Then they sighted the Station, and Channing's ill spirit left. A man of
action, what he hated most was the no-action business of just sitting
in a little capsule of steel waiting for the Relay Station to come up
out of the sky below. Once it was sighted, Channing could foresee
action, and his grousing stopped.
They zipped past the Station at a distance of ten miles, and Channing
opened the radio.
"Walt Franks! Wake up, you slumberhead."