A car with a pennant bearing the insignia of a Senior Quadrate flying from atop its sleek passenger enclosure drove up beside Doug.
"Your transportation, sir."
He returned the salute. "Thank you, no. I shall walk," he said.
It was a short walk—less than two hundred yards, but he did not want it all to happen too quickly.
His steps were measured in slow, deliberate cadence as he crossed the smooth plaza toward the great craft on which his insignia was emblazoned.
At length he was swallowed up inside it, and at a flashing blue signal, the four great ships thundered for the stars, and left Earth a little thing behind them.
CHAPTER XI
Acceleration had left Doug at the brink of unconsciousness despite the hammock in which they'd secured him, but gradually the roar in his ears subsided and the words took shape, as though they were being spoken from the bottom of an empty well.
"... SQ check one ... speed five-three thousand one two oh, acceleration two point one, steady ... trajectory minus two point oh five seconds at eight thousand two hundred, three hundred, four, five, compensate please ... plus point oh three seconds at nine thousand, seven, eight, nine, compensate please ... SQ at stand-by, over."