"Sure. Whoop it up at six until we hit about six thousand. Then decelerate to four thousand by using one G. We'll vacillate in velocity between four and five until we get close."
Forty-one hours later, the Relay Girl made turnover and began to decelerate.
Channing said to Captain Johannson: "Better cut the decel to about a quarter G. That'll be enough to keep our heads from bumping the ceiling, and it will last longer. This is going to be a long chase, and cutting down a few MPS at a half G isn't going to make much never-mind. I'll hazard a guess that the boys are on their way right now."
"If you say so," said Johannson. "You're the boss from now on. You know that wild bunch on the station better than I do. For myself, I've always felt that an answer was desirable before we do anything."
"I know Franks and my wife pretty well—about as well as they know me. I've put myself in Walt's place—and I know what Walt would do. So—if Walt didn't think of it, Arden would—I can assume that they are aware of us, have received our signals, and are, therefore, coming along as fast as they can. They'll come zipping out here at from five to seven G to what they think is halfway and then decelerate again to a sane velocity. We won't catch sight of them for sixty or seventy hours, and when we do, they'll be going so fast that it will take another twenty hours' worth of manipulation to match their speed with ours. Meanwhile, I've got the gun timed to shoot our signal. When the going gets critical, I'll cut the power and make it continuous."
"You're pretty sure of your timing?"
"Well, the best they can do as for direction and velocity and distance is a crude guess. They'll place us out here beyond Terra somewhere. They'll calculate the course requirements to get us this far in the time allotted, and come to a crude figure. I'd like to try keying this thing, but I know that keying it won't work worth a hoot at this distance. Each bundle of keyed electrons would act as a separate negative charge that would spread out and close up at this distance. It's tough enough to hope that the electron beam will hold together that far, let alone trying to key intelligence with it. We'll leave well enough alone—and especially if they're trying to get a fix on us; there's nothing worse than trying to fix an intermittent station. Where are we now?"
"We're on the inner fringe of the Asteroid Belt, about thirty million miles north, and heading on a secant course at thirty-four hundred MPS."
"Too bad Jupiter isn't in the neighborhood," said Channing. "We'll be flirting with his orbit by the time they catch us."