Up and up mounted that powerful tug-boat of space, with her heavy barge, falling smoothly upward at normal acceleration. Below her first Europa, then mighty Jupiter, became moons growing smaller and smaller. In their stateroom Nadia's supple waist writhed in the curve of Stevens' arm as she turned and looked up at him with sparkling eyes.
"Well, big fellow, how does it feel to be out of a job? Or are you going over there every day on a tractor beam to work, as Norman suggested?"
"Not on your sweet young life!" he exclaimed. "Norm thought he was kidding somebody, but it registered zero. It gives me the pip to loaf around when there's a lot of work to do, but this is entirely different. Nothing's driving us now, and a fellow's entitled to at least one honeymoon during his life. And what a honeymoon this is going to be, little spacehound of my heart! Nothing to do but love you all the way from here to Tellus! Whoopee!"
"Oh, there's a couple of other things to do," she reminded him gaily. "You've got to smoke a lot of good cigarettes, I must eat a lot of Delray's chocolates, and we both really should catch up on eating fancy cooking. Speaking of eating, isn't that the second call for dinner? It is!" and they went along the narrow hall toward the elevator. To these two the long journey was to seem all too short.
Long though the voyage was, it was uneventful. The occupants of the two vessels were in constant touch with each other by means of the communicators, and there was also much visiting back and forth in person. Stevens and Nadia came often to the Sirius, and were accompanied frequently by Verna Pickering, who claimed anew her ancient right of "kicking around under foot," wherever Brandon and Westfall might chance to be—and at such times General Crowninshield was practically certain to appear. And upon days when the beautiful brunette did not appear, the commandant generally found it necessary to inspect in person something in the Arcturus.
Day after day passed, and even the new and ultra-powerful detector screens of the Sirius remained unresponsive and cold. Day after day the plates before the doubled lookouts and observers remained blank. Power flowed smoothly and unfailingly into the cosmic receptors, and the products of conversion were discharged with equal smoothness and regularity from the forty-five gigantic driving projectors. The tractor beam held its heavy burden easily and the generators functioned perfectly. And finally a planet began to loom up in the stern lookout plates.
Verna, the irrepressible, was in the control room of the Sirius, quarreling adroitly with Brandon and deftly flirting with Crowninshield. Glancing into the control screen she saw the planet in its end block, then studied the instruments briefly.
"We're heading for Mars!" she declared with conviction. "I thought it looked that way yesterday, but supposed it must be only apparent—a trick of piloting or something about the orbit. I thought of course you were taking us back home—but you can't possibly get to Tellus on any such course as this!"
"Sure not," Brandon replied easily. "Certainly it's Mars. Isn't that where the Arcturus started out for? Whoever said we were going to Tellus? Of course, if any of the passengers want to go right back the IPC will undoubtedly furnish transportation gratis. But paste this in your hat, Verna, for future reference—when spacehounds start out to go anywhere they go there, even if they have to spend a year or so on minus time to do it!"
Closer and closer they approached the red planet, swinging around in a wide arc in order to make their course coincide exactly with the pilot ray of check station M14, which was now precisely in its scheduled location in space. At the chief pilot's desk in the control room of the Arcturus, Breckenridge checked in with the station, then calculated rapidly the instant of their touching the specially-built bumper platforms of spring steel, hemp, and fiber which awaited them upon the Martian dock of the Interplanetary Corporation. Within range of the terminal, he plugged into it, waited until the tiny light flashed its green message of attention, and reported.