Thirty hours after the Relay Girl left the station, Walt and Franklen held a council of war, in which Chuck Thomas was the prime factor.
"We've come about two hundred million miles, and our present velocity is something like four thousand miles per second," said Walt. "We're going out toward Mars on a slightly-off radial course, to the north of the ecliptic. That means we're a little over a quarter of a billion miles from Sol, or about to hit the Asteroid Belt. Thinking it over a little, I think we should continue our acceleration for another thirty hours. What say?"
"The field has shown no change in intensity that I can detect," said Thomas. "If they haven't dropped their radiated intensity, that means that we are no closer to them than we were before. Of course, we'd probably have to cut the distance by at least a half before any measurable decrement made itself evident."
"They must be on the upper limit of that four thousand MPS," observed Walt. "There's one thing certain, we'll never catch them by matching their speed."
"Where will another thirty hours at six G put us and how fast?" asked Franklen.
Silence ensued while they scribbled long figures on scratch paper.
"About eight hundred million miles from Sol," announced Walt.
"And about eight thousand MPS," added Chuck.
"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" asked Franklen.
"By about thirty percent," said Walt, scratching his chin. "If we hold to our original idea of hitting it for six thousand, where will we be?"