over the Jovian satellites and live again their normal lives upon the surfaces of those
small worlds. The Terrestrials were almost equally enthusiastic in the reunion that
marked the end of the long imprisonment of the refugees.
As soon as the hull of the Arcturus had been warmed sufficiently to permit
inspection its original passengers were allowed to visit it briefly, to examine and to
reclaim their belongings. Of course some damage had been done by the cold of
interplanetary space, but in general everything was as they had left it. Stevens and
Nadia were among the first permitted aboard. They went first to the control room, where
Stevens found his bag still lying behind Breckenridge’s desk, where he had thrown it
when he first boarded the vessel. Then they made their way up to Nadia’s stateroom,
which they found in meticulous order and spotless in its cleanliness—there is neither
dust nor dirt in space, Nadia glanced about the formal little room and laughed up at her
husband.
“Funny, isn’t it, sweetheart, how little we know what to expect? Just think how
surprised I would have been, when I left this room, if I had been told that I would have a
husband before I got back to it!”
Breckenridge’s first thought was for his precious triplex automatic chronometer,
which he found, of course, ” ‘way off”—six and three-tenths seconds fast. Having
corrected the timepiece from that of the Sirius, he began to examine the other delicate
instruments of his department—and he was easy to find from that time on.
Overcrowded as the Sirius already was, it was decided that the original
complement of the Arcturus should occupy their former quarters aboard her during the
return trip. To this end corps of mechanics set to work upon the salvaged hulk. Heavy
metal work was no novelty to the Callistonian engineers and mechanics, and the Sirius
also was well equipped with metal-working machines and men. Thus the prow was
welded; armored insulating air-breaks were built along the stern, which was the plane of
hexan cleavage; electrical connections were restored; and lastly, a set of the great
Vorkulian wall-screen generators, absorbers, and dissipators was installed, with
sufficient accumulator capacity for their operation. Director Newton studied this
installation in silence for some time, then went in search of Brandon.
“I hadn’t considered the possibility of being attacked again between here and
Tellus, but there’s always the chance,” he admitted. “If you think that there is any
danger, we will crowd them all into the Sirius. It will not be at all comfortable, but it will
be better than having any more of us killed.”
“With that outfit they’ll be as safe as we will,” the scientist assured him. “They can
stand as much grief as we can. We’ll do the fighting for the whole outfit from here, and
anything we meet will have to take us before they can touch them. So they’d better ride
it there, where they’ll have passengers’ accommodations and be comfortable. As to
danger, I don’t know what to expect. They may all be gone and they may not. We’re
going to expect trouble every meter of the way in, though, and be ready for it.”
Everything ready and thoroughly tested, and a stream of power flowing into the
Arcturus from the cosmic receptors of her sister ship, the passengers and their new
possessions were moved into their former quarters. There was a brief ceremony of
farewell, the doors of the airlocks were closed, the careful check-out was gone through,
and the driving projectors of the Sirius lifted both great vessels up the shaft, slowly and
easily. And after them, as long as they could be seen, stared the thousands of
Callistonians who thronged the great shaft’s floor. Many of the spectators were not,
strictly speaking, Callistonians at all. They were really Europans, born and reared in that
hidden city which was to have been the last stronghold of Callisto’s civilization. In that
throng were hundreds who had never before seen the light of the sun nor any of the
glories of the firmament, hundreds to whom that brief glimpse was a foretaste of the free
and glorious life which was soon to be theirs.
Up and up mounted that powerful tug-boat of space, with her heavy barge, falling
smoothly upward at normal acceleration. Below her first Europa, then mighty Jupiter,
became moons growing smaller and smaller. In their stateroom Nadia’s supple waist
writhed in the curve of Stevens’ arm as she turned and looked up at him with sparkling
eyes.
“Well, big fellow, how does it feel to be out of a job? Or are you going over there
every day on a tractor beam to work, as Norman suggested ?”
“Not on your sweet young life!” he exclaimed. “Norm thought he was kidding
somebody, but it registered zero. It gives me the pip to loaf around when there’s a lot of
work to do, but this is entirely different. Nothing’s driving us now, and a fellow’s entitled
to at least one honeymoon during his life. And what a honeymoon this is going to be,
little spacehound of my heart! Nothing to do but love you all the way from here to Tellus!
Whoopee !”
“Oh, there’s a couple of other things to do,” she reminded him gaily. “You’ve got
to smoke a lot of good cigarettes, I must eat a lot of Delray’s chocolates, and we both
really should catch up on eating fancy cookery. Speaking of eating, isn’t that the second
call for dinner? It is!” and they went along the narrow hall toward the elevator. To these
two the long journey was to seem all too short.
Long though the voyage was, it was uneventful. The occupants of the two
vessels were in constant touch with each other by means of the communicators, and
there was also much visiting back and forth in person. Stevens and Nadia came often to
the Sirius, and were accompanied frequently by Verna Pickering, who claimed anew her
ancient right of “kicking around under foot” wherever Brandon and Westfall might
chance to be—and at such times General Crowninshield was practically certain to
appear. And upon days when the beautiful brunette did not appear, the commandant
generally found it necessary to inspect in person something in the Arcturus.
Day after day passed, and even the new and ultra-powerful detector screens of
the Sirius remained unresponsive and cold. Day after day the plates before the doubled
lookouts and observers remained blank. Power flowed smoothly and unfailingly into the
cosmic receptors, and the products of conversion were discharged with equal
smoothness and regularity from the forty five gigantic driving projectors. The tractor
beam held its heavy burden easily and the generators functioned perfectly. And finally a
planet began to loom up in the stern lookout plates.
Verna, the irrepressible, was in the control room of the Sirius, quarreling adroitly
with Brandon and deftly flirting with Crowninshield. Glancing into the control screen she
saw the planet in its end block, then studied the instruments briefly.
“We’re heading for Mars!” she declared with conviction. “I thought it looked that
way yesterday, but supposed it must be only apparent—a trick of piloting or something
about the orbit. I thought of course you were taking us back home—but you can’t
possibly get to Tellus on any such course as this!”
“Sure not,” Brandon replied easily. “Certainly it’s Mars. Isn’t that where the
Arcturus started out for? Who ever said we were going to Tellus ? Of course, if any of
the passengers want to go right back, the IPC will undoubtedly furnish transportation
gratis. But paste this in your hat, Verna, for future reference—when spacehounds start
out to go anywhere they go there, even if they have to spend a year or so on plus time
to do it!”
Closer and closer they approached the red planet, swinging around in a wide arc
in order to make their course coincide exactly with the pilot ray of check station Mi4,
which was now precisely in its scheduled location in space. At the chief pilot’s desk in
the control room of the Arcturus, Breckenridge checked in with the station, then
calculated rapidly the instant of their touching the specially-built bumper platforms of
spring steel, hemp, and fiber which awaited them upon the Martian dock of the Inter-
Planetary Corporation. Within range of the terminal, he plugged into it, waited until the
tiny light flashed its green message of attention, and reported.
“IPV Arcturus; Breckenridge, Chief Pilot; trip number forty three twenty nine.
Checking in—four hundred forty six days, fifteen hours, eleven minutes, thirty eight and
seven-tenths seconds plus!”
THE END