Inside of the _Hippocrates_, men were still frozen to their handholds.
It was messy, and cleaning up the _Hippocrates_ was a job not relished
by those who did it.
But cleaning up Venus Equilateral was no small matter either.
* * * * *
Weeks went by before the snarled-up instruments were repaired. Weeks
in which the captured _Hippocrates_ was repaired, too, and used to
transport material and special supplies from Terra, and Venus, and
Mars. Weeks in which the service from planet to planet was interrupted
and erratic.
Then one day, service was restored, and life settled down to a
reasonable level. It was after this time that Walt and Channing found
time to spend an idle hour together. Walt raised his glass and said:
"Here's to electrons!"
"Yeah," grinned Channing. "Here's to electrons. Y'know, Walt, I was a
little afraid that space might become a sort of wild West show, with
the ships bristling with space guns and betatrons and stuff like that.
In which case you'd have been a stinking benefactor. But if the recoil
is as bad as the output--and Newton said that it must be--I can't see
ships cluttering up their insides with stuff that'll screw up their
instruments and driver tubes. But the thing that amuses me about the
whole thing is the total failure you produced."
"Failure?" asked Walt. "What failed?"
"Don't you know? Have you forgotten? Do you realize that spaceships are
still ducking around meteors instead of blasting them out of the way
with the Franks Electron Gun? Or did you lose sight of the fact that
this dingbat started out in life as a meteor-sweeper?"
Walt glared over the rim of his glass, but he had nothing to say.