Part 5

He returned to the cabin where two out of a necessary eight graphite bars were in place. He worked. Fast. No man ever worked so fast or so fiercely or with such desperately steady hands. In twenty minutes he made the last, the final connection. And just as he dropped the hatch in place, Esther called anxiously:

"More machines coming, Stan! The microphones pick them up!"

"Coming!" he told her briskly. He went to the instrument board and threw switches here and there. "The normal thing," he said evenly, "would be to lift from the ground here, on landing drive, and go into field drive out of atmosphere. But we won't do it for two reasons. One is that we have no landing drive. The other is that at normal take-off acceleration, our friends of the grid would take a potshot at us with the thing they used on Rob Torren. With a hundred thousand million horsepower. So--here goes!"

He stabbed a simple push button.

With no perceptible interval and with no sensation of movement, the _Erebus_ was out in deep space. The screens showed stars on every side--all the stars of the Galaxy. And these were not the hostile, immobile, unfriendly stars the first voyagers of space had seen. With the Bowdoin-Hall field collapsing forty times a second, the stars moved visibly. The nearer ones moved more swiftly and the farther ones more slowly, but all moved. The cosmos seemed very small and almost cosy, and the stars mere fireflies and the Rim itself no more than a few miles away from them.

Stan watched. He said, "We're not making much time. Not over six hundred lights, I'd say. But we'll get there."

"And--and when we do--"

"H'm," said Stan. "You can swear Torren said he'd committed the crimes he charged me with and faked the evidence against me. With that testimony, they'll examine the evidence as they do when there are no witnesses. It'll fall down. And I'll be cleared."

"Stan!" said Esther indignantly. "I meant--"

"And when I'm cleared," said Stan, "we'll get married."

"That," admitted Esther, "is what I had in mind."

He kissed her, and stood watching the moving cosmos critically.

"Our friends the grid builders have gotten waked up now," he observed. "They know they're not the only intelligent race in the universe, and they may not like it. They're a fretful crew! But they'll have to be made friends with. And quick, or they might cause trouble! I think I'll apply to be assigned to the task force that will undertake the job. It ought to be interesting! Not a dull moment!"

Esther scowled at him.

"Now," she protested, "you reduce me to being glad we're not making our proper speed! Because after you get back--"

"Listen, my dear," said Stan generously, "I'll promise to come home from time to time. And when I do I'll grab you like this, and kiss you like this--" There was an interlude. "And do you think you'll manage to survive?"

Esther gasped for breath. But she was smiling.

"I--I think I'll be able to stand it," she admitted.

"Good!" said Stan. "Now let's go have some breakfast!"