Two months out of Io City
Everything was running pretty,
The asteroids were thirty hours away,
When McNeer, to whom perfection
Was a sort of predilection,
Said, "Bill, we'll take the hypos down today."
Well, the hypatomic motors
Are the energy-plus rotors
That control a spaceship's motion in the void.
When the ship is once free-wheeling
'Neath the vast celestial ceiling,
Then's the time to clean the grit with which they're cloyed.
So Bill said, "Yup. Okey-dokey!"
And with movements slow and pokey
Dismounted Number one and got to work.
"Do a perfect job, you _globaar_![2]
Or I'll crown you with a crow-bar!"
Warned McNeer--and then he vanished with a smirk.
It was some two hours later
As, upon his "sweet pertater"
The Chief Engineer was tootling _Venus Nell_,
That the Second Mate, half witless,
Out of breath and frightened spitless,
Burst in crying, "Chief, we're on our way to hell!"
"What, already?" drawled McNeer
But the mate, pale green with fear,
Bawled, "Go get the hypos working, without fail!
And go do it on the double,
'Cause we're in a peck of trouble!
A rogue asteroid is riding on our tail!"