"That's impossible," she said curtly.
Again she started up the steps and again he stopped her.
"No," he said, and now he knew that he must not let her get away. As wildly improbable, not to say insane, as this whole business was, she was real and her ship was real, and wiser men than he should be handed the responsibility of dealing with that reality.
"You and I together couldn't convince anybody by just talking," he said. "The only thing that could is your ship. That was never made on Earth and they would know that. They could test it, examine it, prove it isn't a fake, a hoax of any kind, and that's going to be hard—you haven't any idea how hard."
He stepped onto the lowest step of the stair. "You've got to fly this thing to Washington."
"I told you that's impossible," she said. "I've given you the warning; you'll have to do what you can with it. Stand clear!"
She turned her back on him and sprang lightly through the aperture into the ship.
Wyatt did not stop to think. He rushed up the stair after her and it began to draw itself up as he did so, folding him under, so that he thought he was going to have to jump clear or be crushed. There was a whine of power from inside. Damn her, thought Wyatt, she doesn't care if she kills me. He scrambled frantically up the tilting, flattening rungs and caught the edge of the aperture and kicked himself forward through it.
The panel that was sliding in to seal the opening caught him halfway and held him in an agonizing grip. He cried out with pain and the fear of being cut in two. He could see into the round cockpit now, with the black-uniformed woman stopped in the act of sitting down at the controls, her startled face turned toward him.