Caffrey closed the door. It clanged loudly. Dillman looked around.
"Hello, Captain," he said. "We're right on course. Mars in six hours, fourteen minutes."
Caffrey nodded, slumping down into a thickly padded shock chair. Beyond the wide observation window, space made endless black, and stars hung there like pieces of a broken diamond. The swollen ball of the sun burned above the ship, and Mars lay scarlet, just ahead. Distant rumbling from the old corroded jet tubes filled the room.
"How's everything?" Caffrey asked. "Engines?"
"All right," Dillman said, leaning against the astrogation table. "Few pieces of stuff failed to fission awhile back, but everything's okay now."
Caffrey waved his hand. "Get out the bottle."
Dillman grinned and pulled open a green metal wall cabinet. He filled two tumblers with the syrupy swamp wine and handed one of the glasses to Caffrey. The captain of the ship drank half, breathed loudly, and emptied the glass.
He hunched deeper into the shock chair, resting. "I'll be glad when it's over, Dillman. Really glad."
"Do you mean that, sir?"