"A bit of personal business on Mars which can best be done at the same time, thus saving an additional trip."
"O.K.," said Don idly. "Might as well get it over with. Can you pack in an hour?"
"Sure. I'll be there."
Actually, it was less than an hour before the Relay Girl went out of the South End Landing Stage, turned, and headed for Mars. Packing to the Channings was a matter of persuading Arden not to take everything but the drapes in the apartment along with her, while for Walt Franks it was a matter of grabbing a trunkful of instruments and spare parts. Space travel is a matter of waiting for days in the confines of a small bubble of steel. Just waiting. For the scenery is unchanging all the way from Sol to Pluto—and is the same scenery that can be seen from the viewports of Venus Equilateral. Walt enjoyed his waiting time by tinkering; having nothing to do would have bored him, and so he took with him enough to keep him busy during the trip.
At two Terran gravities, the velocity of the Relay Girl built up bit by bit and mile by mile until they were going just shy of one thousand miles per second. This occurred an hour before turnover, which would take place at the twenty-third hour of flight.
And at that time there occurred a rarity. Not an impossibility like the chances of collision with a meteor, those things happen only once in a lifetime, and Channing had had his collision. Nor was it as remote as getting a royal flush on the deal. It happened, not often, but it did happen to some ships occasionally.
Another ship passed within detector range.
The celestial globe glimmered faintly and showed a minute point at extreme range. Automatic marker-spheres appeared concentrically within the celestial globe and colures and diameters marked the globe off into octants. A dim red line appeared before the object, giving the probable course of the object.
Bells rang briefly, and the automatic meteor-circuits interpreted the orbit of the oncoming object and decided that the object was not dangerous. Then they relaxed. Their work was done until another object came within range for them to inspect. They were no longer interested, and they forgot about the object with the same powers of complete oblivion that they would have exerted on a meteor of nickel and iron.
They were mechanically incapable of original thought. So the object, to them, was harmless.