"How long?" asked Tommy.
"Well, she left Terra Tuesday morning. She didn't say what time, but there's little sense in finding out right now. That hop would take sixty-eight hours at a standard 5-G from Sol. Say sixty-something, and let's see, this is about Thursday evening—Greenwich Time, but that screwball might give zonal time and have taken off from Hawaii or Sevastopol as the fancy hit her. I'd say sit tight and expect anything from attar of roses to total extinction within the next couple of hours. Also get on the lens network and tell the gang to oil up their trouble-wagons. Everything from spacesuits to hand generators. Oh Peter! I'm going to quit this ding-busted job and take up truck farming!"
"Ever hear of Sandra Drake before?" asked Tommy.
"Yeah, she's one of those fool females that isn't content with being equal to any man—she's got to prove she's better! And she doesn't care how many people she hurts doing it. If Sandra Drake gets through the lens to Pluto, she'll get her ears toasted right."
"O.K., John. I'll get on the lens network and warn the boys to prepare for trouble."
Messages began to fly around the periphery of the great lens, and the station attendants swore and began to collect tools that would be necessary to make any conceivable repairs. Small flitters were powered and made ready, and everything that carried manual controls was inspected and cleaned for action.
But Sandra Drake did not wait for the completion of the preparatory work. It was three hours after the first message flew around the lens that Sandra's ship, the Lady Luck, came roaring out of space and slid its nose into the magneto-gravitic warp of the front surface.
The Lady Luck came to a stop within five thousand miles, which was remarkable, since she was hitting almost eight thousand miles per second. If it were not for the fact that space itself was warped behind the front surface, the Lady Luck and Sandra Drake might both have been reduced to a flaming mass; but no one really knows what goes on behind the surface of a magneto-gravitic warp, and the laws that rule mass, velocity, and inertia must operate under a new principle. Sandra Drake, the ship no longer capable of any but minor operation, limped aimlessly, and Sandra, semiconscious did not direct the Lady Luck.
In the twelve stations that made up the periphery of the fore element, the electrical equipment went crazy. Fuses blew, and circuit breakers crashed open. The magneto-gravitic warp collapsed, and the power regulation of the generating equipment could not hold the power to a safe level. Excesses went into the operating equipment and raised the operating levels to overload values. Relays welded shut; relay coils blew. Switches arced across their open contacts, and closed switches took the overload until their contact points melted: the melting stub ends made sputtering arcs of copper-green hue until the gap was too wide. The pungent smell of burning insulation filled the stations, and the personnel covered themselves with the space-suit helmets and breathed canned air.