"McGinty, for God's sake! Kolomar'll hunt you to the end of Time!"
"Will 'e, now!"
"There's nothing he won't do or can't get done to see you in the death chamber, McGinty. No matter where you go or whom you meet—"
"Sure, an' y'wouldn't be a'kiddin' now, Colonel, would ye? No, y'wouldn't kid McGinty! Ye're not the blarneyin' type, Colonel! Well, come along, then. You take the high road an' I'll take the low—" Singing, suddenly, singing like a drunken madman, and then the screen went blank.
As it did, Haliburton buzzed.
"Ready Ken," he said.
And Loftus and I headed for the landing nets and a taxi berth.
Because he was blasting all the way, it would take McGinty slightly more than twenty-two hours to get from the satellite into an orbit around the Moon. The regular way, blast and drift, it takes about seventy-one. But McGinty was in a hurry.
There was no knowing how soon before that twenty-two hours he would be meeting the Comrades. Nor was there any way of knowing if McGinty intended to break his orbit when he neared the Moon and head on out into Space. That way he'd end up a derelict with his fuel exhausted, smothered when his air was used up, and lost forever. Something began picking at the back of my mind, but I didn't have time to play with it.