But the Stone family had been living on Luna; all the children had been born there — two gravities was twelve times what they were used to.
Roger’s headache, which had quieted under the sedative his wife had prescribed for him, broke out again with renewed strength. His chest felt caved in; he fought for breath and he had to read and reread the accelerometer to convince himself that the ship had not run wild.
After checking over his board and assuring himself that all was going according to plan even if it did feel like a major catastrophe he turned his head heavily. ‘Cas? You all right?’
Castor gasped, ‘Sure Skipper … tracking to flight plan.’
‘Very well, sir.’ He turned his face to his inter-com link. ‘Edith —’
There was no answer. ‘Edith”
This time a strained voice replied, ‘Yes, dear.’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yes, dear. Meade and I… are all right. The baby is having a bad time.’
He was about to call the power room when Castor reminded him of the passage of time. ‘Twenty seconds! Nineteen! Eighteen —’
He turned his eyes to the brennschluss timer and poised his hand on the cut-off switch, ready to choke the jet if the autopilot should fail. Across from him Castor covered him should he fail; below in the power room Hazel was doing the same thing, hand trembling over the cut-off.
As the timer flashed the last half second, as Castor shouted, ‘Brennschluss!,’ three hands slammed at three switches — but the autopilot had beaten them to it. The jet gasped as its liquid food was suddenly cut off from it; damper plates quenched the seeking neutrons in the atomic pile — and the Stone was in free orbit, falling toward Earth in a sudden, aching silence broken only by the whispering of the airconditioner.
Roger Stone reswallowed his stomach, ‘Power room!’ he rasped. ‘Report!’
He could hear Hazel sighing heavily. ‘Okay, son,’ she said feebly, ‘but mind that top step — it’s a dilly!’
‘Cas, call the port. Get a doppler check.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ Castor called the radar & doppler station at Leyport. The Rolling Stone had all the usual radar and piloting instruments but a spaceship cannot possibly carry equipment of the size and accuracy of those mounted as pilot aids at all ports and satellite stations. ‘Rolling Stone to Luna Pilot — come in, Luna Pilot.’ While he called he was warming up their own radar and doppler-radar, preparing to check the performance of their own instruments against the land-based standards. He did this without being told, it being a co-pilot’s routine duty.
‘Luna Pilot to Rolling Stone.’
‘Rolling Stone to Luna Pilot — request range, bearing and separation rate, and flight plan deviations, today’s flight fourteen — plan as filed; no variations.’
‘We’re on you. Stand by to record.’
‘Standing by,’ answered Castor and flipped the switch on the recorder. They were still so close to the Moon that the speed-of-light lag in transmission was unnoticeable.
A bored voice read off the reference time to the nearest half second, gave the double co-ordinates of their bearing in terms of system standard — corrected back to where the Moon had been at their blast-off — then gave their speed and distance relative to Luna with those figures also corrected back to where the Moon had been. The corrections were comparatively small since the Moon ambles along at less than two-thirds of a mile per second, but the corrections were utterly necessary. A pilot who disregarded them would find himself fetching up thousands or even millions of miles from his destination.
The operator added, ‘Deviation from flight plan negligible. A very pretty departure, Rolling Stone.’
Castor thanked him and signed off. ‘In the groove, Dad!’
‘Good. Did you get our own readings?’
‘Yes, sir. About seven seconds later than theirs.’
‘Okay. Run ’em back on the flight line and apply the vectors. I want a check.’ He looked more closely at his son; Castor’s complexion was a delicate chartreuse. ‘Say, didn’t you take your pills?’
‘Uh, yes, sir. It always hits me this way at first. I’ll be all right.’
‘You look like a week-old corpse.’