"Lord, man!" Thurner looked at Timmy with a hint of surprise veiling his usual antagonism. "How in hell does this thing work?"
"Search me," shrugged Timmy. "I worked it out on a sensitizing principle. My impervium hull was supposed to reject light as a mirror would, and so throw itself forward like a beam of light. The thing works, too."
"She sure do," chuckled the delighted Greek. He looked through the sunward port and watched Jupiter diminishing. "Great Scotts!" he yelled. "This ships are fast like Greek god, Mercury!"
"And just as inexplicable."
"Why, man?" asked Thurner, "You've told us how she worked."
"You mean ... how I thought she would work. Unfortunately, I tried the same principle on more impervium ... and not another ship has flown like this one. My math was wrong, but my mechanics worked. Just once."
"So I'm supposed to operate a fluke to Neptune?"
"Don't worry about it, Thurner. She's dependable and her controls are exactly like those in an ordinary planetary-liner. Watch." Timmy threw the wheel down, and the Solabor tipped into a wide curve. Jupiter vanished. Dotted pinpoints of stars prickled the black of inter-world space.
"Looks easy," grunted the pilot. He slipped over into the wheelman's chair, and fiddled experimentally with gadgets. "Okay," he said, "after four or five minutes I'll be able to handle her."
"QX," said Timmy. "There's a copy of Maconachy's book on Supra-solar Navigation behind you. Great book, Maconachy, wouldn't want to be in space without it to lean on." Thurner grunted again.