"Smile pretty, everybody," Garlock said, and pressed a stud.
"... the matter? What's the matter? Oh...." the worried voice of the System's ace newscaster came in. "Power failure already?"
"No," Garlock replied. "I figured we had a couple of minutes of privacy coming, if you can understand the meaning of the word. Now all four of us tell everybody who is watching or listening au revoir or good-bye, whichever it may turn out to be." He reached for the switch.
"Wait a minute!" the newscaster demanded. "Leave it on until the last poss...." His voice broke off sharply.
"Turn it back on!" Belle ordered.
"Nix."
"Scared?" she sneered.
"You chirped it, bird-brain. I'm scared purple. So would you be, if you had three brain cells working in that glory-hound's head of yours. Get set, everybody, and we'll take off."
"Stop it, both of you!" Lola exclaimed. "Where do you want us to sit, and do we strap down?"
"You sit here; Belle at that plate beside Jim. Yes, strap down. There probably won't be any shock, and we should land right side up, but there's no sense in taking chances. Sure your stuff's all aboard?"