She made as if to spit, then grinned. "My career! It's time I went home
to the fiord, anyway. Now you wait here!"
* * * * *
The _vliegvlotter_ was about 50 feet long, an ellipsoid of revolution.
Maitland and Ingrid ran hand in hand across the lawn and she pushed
him up through the door, then slammed it shut and screwed the pressure
locks tight.
They were strapping themselves into the seats, bathed in sunlight that
flooded down through the thick plastic canopy, when she stopped, pale
with consternation.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
"Oh, Bob, I forgot! We can't do this!"
"We're going to," he said grimly.
"Bob, _sometime this morning you're going to snap back to 1950_. If
that happens while we're up there...."
His jaw went slack as the implication soaked in. Then he reached over
and finished fastening the buckle on her wide seat belt.
"Bob, I can't. I would be killing you just as surely as...."
"Never mind that. You can tell me how to run this thing and then get
out, if you want to."
She reached slowly forward and threw a switch, took hold of the wheel.
Seconds later they were plummeting into the blue dome of the sky.
The blue became darker, purplish, and stars appeared in daylight.
Maitland gripped the edge of the seat; somewhere inside him it seemed
that a chorus of angels was singing the finale of Beethoven's Ninth.
There was a _ping_ and Ingrid automatically flicked a switch. A screen
lit up and the image of Swarts was looking at them. His eyes betrayed
some unfamiliar emotion, awe or fear. "Ching! Come back here at once.
Don't you realize that--"
"Sorry, Swarts." Maitland's voice resonated with triumph. "You'll just
have to humor me once more."
"Maitland! Don't you know that you're going to snap back to the 20th
Century in half an hour? You'll be in space with no protection. You'll
explode!"
"I know," Maitland said. He looked up through the viewport. "Right now,
I'm seeing the stars as I've never seen them before. Sorry to make you
lose a case, Swarts, but this is better than dying of pneumonia or an
atomic bomb."
He reached forward and snapped the image off.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later, Maitland had Ingrid cut the drive and turn the
ship, so that he could see the Earth. It was there, a huge shining
globe against the constellations, 10,000 miles distant, 100 times the
size of familiar Luna. North America was directly below, part of Canada
covered with a dazzling area of clouds. The polar ice-cap was visible
in its entirety, along with the northern portions of the Eurasian land
mass. The line of darkness cut off part of Alaska and bisected the
Pacific Ocean, and the Sun's reflection in the Atlantic was blinding.
And there was Venus, a brilliant, white jewel against the starry
blackness of interstellar space, and now he could see the Sun's
corona....
The ship was rotating slowly, and presently the Moon, at first quarter,
came into view, not perceptibly larger than seen from Earth. Maitland
heaved a sigh of regret. If only this could have been but the beginning
of a voyage....