The drive went off.
And the men and their portable equipment left the solid floor and began to float aimlessly across the room in midair.
Hammond clutched wildly at a spectrograph, and caught it.
"Catch!" he yelled at McBride, hurling the heavy instrument at John.
McBride folded himself over the instrument with a grunt of escaping breath. The act did two things. It sent Hammond across the room to the emergency panel in one direction and McBride went in the opposite direction to the navigator's calculating machine. McBride caught the navigator's table at the same time that Hammond caught the emergency panel.
Steve fought with the emergency panel and succeeded in setting up about eleven feet per second deceleration. McBride lowered the spectrograph to the table and seated himself in the chair.
"Woah, Nellie," grunted McBride as the alarm bells ceased. "Where do we go from here and how fast?"
"I dunno, but we're leaving both Sirius and Sol at a terrific velocity and a deceleration of eleven feet per. From a mental calculation of the fundamental drive at this velocity, I'd say it would take about fourteen years to get down to a stop."
"What happened to the emergency relays?"
"They worked," said Steve dryly. "Yeah, they worked. But the inefficiency extends to the fundamental drive, too, it seems. I'm beginning to think that this is not inherent."