"Where are you? In Joe's?"
"Joe has declared a drought for the duration," said Franks with a
laugh. "He thinks we can't think on Scotch."
"We can't. Have you seen the boys?"
"Murdoch's crew? Sure, they're circling at about five miles, running
around in the plane of the ecliptic. Keep running on the colure and the
chances are that you won't even see 'em. But, Don, they can hear us!"
"How about the landing stage at the South end?"
"There are two of them running around the Station at different heights
from South to North. The third is circling in a four-mile circle on a
plane five miles South of the Station. We've picked up a few HE shells,
and I guess that, if you try to make a landing there, you'll be shot to
bits. That devil is using the meteor detector for a gun pointer."
"Walt, remember the range finder?"
"Y'mean the one we used to find the _Empress_?"
"Uh-huh. Rig it without the adjustable mirror. Get me? D'you know what
I want to do?"
"Yop. All we have to do is to clear away some of the saw grass again.
Not too much, though, because it hasn't been too long since we cut it
before. I get you all right."
"Fine. How soon?"
"I'm in the beam control dome North. I've got a portable mike, and I
walk over to the adjustable mirror and begin to tinker with the moving
screws. _Ouch!_ I've skun me a knuckle. Now look, Don, I'm going inside
and crack the passage end. I've broadcast throughout the Station that
this is to be cracked, and the men are swarming all over the axis of
the Station doing just that. Come a-running!"
* * * * *
Channing circled the little ship high to the North and came down
toward the axis of the Station. He accelerated fiercely for a portion
of the time, and then made a slam-bang turnabout that caused some of
the plates to complain. A pilot light on the instrument panel gleamed,
indicating that some of the plates were strained and that the ship was
leaking air. Another light lit, indicating that the automatic pressure
control was functioning, and that the pressure was maintained, though
it might not be too long.
Then in deceleration, Channing fought the ship on to a die-straight
line with the open door at the North end. He fixed the long, long
passageway in the center of his sights, and prayed.
The ship hit the opening squarely, and only then did their terrific
speed become apparent. Past bulkhead after bulkhead they drove, and a
thin scream came to their ears as the atmosphere down in the bowels of
the Station was compressed by the tiny ship's passage.
Doors slammed behind the ship as it passed, and air locks were opened,
permitting the Station's center to fill to its normal pressure once
more.
Then the rocketing ship slowed. Channing saw a flash of green and knew
that the Martial saw grass was halfway down the three-mile length of
the Station. He zipped past storeroom and rooms filled with machinery,
and then the ship scraped lightly against one of the bulkheads.
It caromed from this bulkhead against the next, hitting it in a
quartering slice. From side to side the ship bounced, crushing the
bulkheads and tearing great slices from the flanks of the ship.
It slowed, and came to rest against a large room full of packing cases,
and was immediately swarmed over by the men from the Relay Station.
They found Channing partly conscious. His nose was bleeding, but
otherwise he seemed all right. Arden was completely out, though a quick
check by the Station's medical staff assured Don that she would be all
right as soon as they gave her a work-out. He was leaving the center
of the Station when Franks came puffing up the stairway from the next
lowest level.
"Gosh," he said. "It's a real job trying to guess where you stopped.
I've been hitting every hundred feet and asking. Well, that was one for
the book."
"Yeah," groaned Don. "Come along, Walt. I want a shower. You can give
the résumé of the activities whilst I'm showering and trying to soak
this adhesive off. Arden, lucky girl, will be unconscious when the doc
rips it off, but I never liked the way they remove tape."
"There isn't much to tell," said Franks. "But what there is, I'll tell
you."
Channing was finishing the shower when Walt mentioned that it was too
bad that they hadn't started his electron gun a few weeks sooner.