"It's an idea. Seems to me that I've heard somewhere that the combined warps of magneto- and mechanogravitic produces some vectors in the electrogravitic spectrum."
"Mind if I brag?" asked McBride. "That was in a paper I scribbled for the Interplanetary Gravitic Engineers. Purely a matter of making a few dimes, at the time there was nothing practical about it, since we had E-grav generators before we discovered the mechano- and magnetogravitics."
"We?" grinned Hammond. "You were still three generations in the future at the time, grandpa. But it's worth a try."
"Never thought that my effort was going to be worth a hoot," smiled John McBride. "Let's give it a whirl."
"O.K. I'll call the gang." Steve Hammond stepped to the communicator and spoke. "Jimmy, Pete, Larry! Come a-running and bring your cutting pliers!"
From what was obviously three different parts of the ship, three voices answered.
Pete arrived first. "Meet John McBride of the Plutonian Lens," introduced Hammond. "This is Pete, whose whole name is Peter Thurman, and who is the guy who knows all about drive equipment."
Pete grinned. "You see us hitting sky at two hundred feet per," he said, shaking McBride's hand.
Jimmy arrived, with Larry not far behind. "These are James Wilson and Lawrence Timkins, respectively. Jimmy is the alphatron expert, and Larry knows all there is to know about electrical circuits and wiring."