"Look, kids," interrupted Lane, "we've been talking this up and down for three hours. Now it's time to take off. Scram, like good little lovelies."
Cliff bade them a proper good-by and herded them back into the car. It started and rolled slowly away amid feminine calls. Its course was erratic, for the driver was handling the car by instinct; her head being turned back over the front seat to watch Lane, too. Had she been on a road instead of a broad, shining expanse of tarmacadam, trouble would have met her more than half-way.
Cliff waved a last good-by and turned to face a group of kine-photographers. "Hi, Hal. Hello, fellers."
"Hey, Cliff, will you wipe your puss or don't you care if Venus sees their Favorite Son in lipstick?"
Lane laughed and wiped. "On me it doesn't look good," he agreed. "What'll you have?"
"We'd like shots of you giving the last order, entering the ship, and then wait until we can get set up on the edge of the field. We want a pan shot of the command hitting the ether."
"O.K. That we can do."
He turned to the group of unit commanders and said, "The usual, fellows. Straight up and away. Hey, Hal, pan the gang, will you? As a hotshot I'm slightly cool if they aren't behind me."
"Great stuff," grinned Hal. The kinephotogs spread out, took their shots, and then closed up for the final order. As the space door clanged shut, they raced for the edge of the field and waited.
With an instantaneous rush, the lead ship, bearing the green triangle of Venus surrounded by the five stars of the flight commander, took off in a slight swirl of airswept dust. Then at a separation of exactly three tenths of a second, the other twenty-four ships leaped into the sky and formed a long spiral in space.