The space lock closed, and the men retreated inside of the Station's air lock. The gigantic doors swung open, letting a huge puff of air out into space. Then the Lady Luck lifted gracefully for all of her tons of mass, and wafted out through the opened door. It was a dead-center passage, one that could be made only with a master pilot running the board personally.
Then she was gone. Halfway around the lens she would have to go before Sirius came into a safe line of flight. Sandra was taking no more chances on contacting the surface of that mighty space-warp that focused Sol on Pluto.
McBride wondered: Has Sandra learned her lesson?
One week passed. One week, filled to the very brim with all of those routine things that make life full of wonder—as to whether there isn't something better in the hereafter. The sheer millions of miles of gravitic-induced space-warp refracted Sol's light endlessly and perfectly to make for Pluto a synthetic sun that sported a dozen darting points. On Pluto, men lived and worked and pursued happiness, and the valuable ore came up from the ground in the Styx Valley and created the need for Pluto and the lens. Over Mephisto, the smelters cast their glow against the sky, which the inhabitants of Hell always called "The Eternal Fire." Across the River Styx from Hell, Sharon lay like a city of marble by day and a string of pearls by night.
Nor was Hell, as seen from Sharon, any less beautiful. The twin cities of Pluto, rivals in everything, fought as usual. And the bone of contention for that particular week was a simple, age-old epithet. It is a sorry fact that with the entire solar system running as it always did, Sharon and Hell found it possible to make the headlines of all the cities of the system by their arguments.
Sharon lost. Hell succeeded in bringing to mind the fact that Hell, Pluto, was a fine place to be, and the poor citizens of Sharon were forced into second consideration. But then, Sharon had not been a running business for centuries.
Go to Sharon! had no familiar ring.
But the Road to Hell was a broad highway.
McBride looked up as the door to his office opened, and his jaw fell away down to here. He blinked. He looked again, and then jumped to his feet. "She found you!" he said.