Was this it, his heart questioned. This was what he had to do before the radio disease got him, wasn't it. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear, he couldn't feel. Oh, God, he couldn't even think.
Was this it? his heart asked again. Whatever the answer, it was somehow adequate ... for Joe's body, weakened by the life-sucking plague moved slowly ... so very slowly....
"We've nearly reached the last of the catalyst, if Black Tom's figures are right," Bairn said to the men crowded into the pilot's cubby.
"There's Earth," Parman said, and his voice was a caress.
The whole crew was there in the cubby, save for Arden and Burnet and the medical Guetschow twin. Doc Guetschow was down in sick bay with the other two, Burnet's head having started to act up again after three days without water.
"Tom, you're sure your figures are right?" the other Guetschow twin asked.
"Much as I hate to say it, yes. Only a few hundred miles and we're finished." Tom licked his puffed lips.
It was quiet there in the cubby as the atomic motor drove the ship at tremendous speed through the void.
"Can't we coast in?" Parman asked. "We've got tremendous acceleration."