"No Gs, Jonner. Engine not work?"
"Sure, she's working," said Jonner with a grin. "You'll never get any more G than we've got now, Qoqol, all the way to Mars. Our maximum acceleration will be 1/3,000th-G."
"One three-thousandth?" exclaimed T'an, shaken out of his Oriental calm. "Jonner, the Marsward will blast away at one or two Gs. How do you expect to beat that at 1/3,000th?"
"Because they have to cut off and coast most of the way in an elliptic orbit, like any other rocket," answered Jonner calmly. "We drive straight across the system, under power all the time. We accelerate half way, decelerate the other half."
"But 1/3,000th!"
"You'll be surprised at what constant power can do. I know Baat, and I know the trick he's going to use. It's obvious from the blastoff time they arranged. He's going to tack off the Moon and use his power right to cut 20 days off that regular 237-day schedule. But this tug-boat will make it in 154 days!"
They took aboard the 200-ton landing boat. By the time they got it secured, the radio already was sounding warnings for blastoff.
Zero hour arrived. Again Jonner pulled levers and again the faint glow appeared around the tail of their distant tug. Across space the exhaust of the Marsward XVIII flared into blinding flame. In a moment, it began to pull ahead visibly and soon was receding like a meteor.
Near the Radiant Hope, the space station seemed not to have changed position at all.
"The race is not always to the swift," remarked Jonner philosophically.