And during all these evolutions and until their return to ground the rescuers themselves would remain inertialess. Ordinarily such visitors left the ship, inerted themselves, and came back to it inert, under their own power. But now there was no time for that. They had to get Kinnison to the hospital; and besides, the doctor and the nurse—particularly the nurse—could not be expected to be space-suit navigators. They would all take it in the net, and that was another reason for haste. For while they were gone their latent velocity would remain unchanged, while the actual velocity of their present surroundings would be changing constantly. The longer they were gone the greater would become the discrepancy. Hence the net.
The net—a leather-and-canvas sack, lined with softly padded inner-spring mattresses, anchored to ceiling and to walls and to floor through every shock-absorbing artifice of steel spring and of rubber cable that the mind of man had been able to devise. It takes something to absorb and to dissipate the kinetic energy which may reside within a human body when its latent velocity does not match exactly the actual velocity of its surroundings—that is, if that body is not to be mashed to a pulp. It takes something, also, to enable any human being to face without flinching the prospect of going into that net, especially in ignorance of exactly how much kinetic energy will have to be dissipated.
Haynes cogitated, studying the erect, supple young back, then spoke, "Maybe we'd better cancel the nurse, Lacy, or get her a suit——"
"Time is too important," the girl herself put in, crisply. "Don't worry about me, admiral; I've been in the net before."
She turned toward Haynes as she spoke, and for the first time he really saw her face. Why, she was a raving beauty—a knock-out—a seven-sector call-out——
"Here she is!" In the grip of a tractor the speedster had flashed to ground in front of the waiting five, and they hurried aboard.
They hurried, but there was no flurry, no confusion. Each knew exactly what to do, and each did it.
Out into space shot the little vessel, jerking savagely downward and sidewise as one of the pilots cut the Bergenholm. Out of the air lock flew the port admiral and the helpless, unconscious Kinnison, inertialess both and now chained together. Off they darted, in a new direction and with tremendous speed, as Haynes cut Kinnison's neutralizer. There was a mighty double flare as the drivers of both space suits struggled against that which had been the young Lensman's latent velocity.
As soon as it was safe to do so, out darted an armored figure with a space line, whose grappling end clinked into a socket of the old man's armor as the pilot rammed it home. Then, as an angler plays a fish, two husky pilots, feet wide-braced against the steel portal of the air lock and bodies sweating with effort, heaving when they could and giving line only when they must, helped the laboring drivers to overcome the difference in velocity.