"O.K., but we're going to have to figure a way out of this. I couldn't stand knowing anything like this drive without trying to make it practical."
"Wait until we can talk without getting our tongues bitten off by this drive of yours, and we'll go to work on it."
McBride said: "And I'd say let's do it quick! Enid needs me—"
Sandra Drake forced the jack-rabbitting ship into a cockeyed orbit about Pluto after a couple of hours. They had nosebleed, jittery nerves, aching muscles, and voracious appetites by the time the drive was cut. They ate, smoked, took showers, and then decided to call a conference.
Hammond opened it by saying: "There's one quick way to do this. It's on everybody's tongue, but I have the floor and I'll voice it first. To keep from getting squashed by our own weight under a few thousand feet per, we need something to take up the shock—something to counterbalance the gravity-apparent. Jimmy, how many mechanogravitic generators have we aboard?"
"Two, including the one we're running in the drive right now. It is as big, however."
"How's the output of our patched-together alphatron?"
"Plenty. The coil of the E-grav was much oversize, and since electrons will rush in where alphons fear to tread, we've plenty of soup."
"Then we'll set the other mech-grav up in the nose, and extend the warp down to envelop the ship. Right?"