Gerry Norton watched them with a smile on his lean, dark face. They were a good crowd! The Viking was going on the most dangerous journey mankind had ever attempted, a journey from which no one had ever before returned alive, but he could not have asked for a better group of subordinates. They were people of his own choosing, and all but two were old shipmates. Though he had never sailed with Chester Sand, the Safety Officer had been highly recommended. Neither had he ever sailed with Olga Stark before, but he knew her by reputation as an excellent navigator and when she applied to go he felt he should accept her.
For half an hour Gerry held them together, while he set the watches and checked assignments and outlined other routine details. Then the meeting ended, and only Steve Brent remained with him. They walked forward into the darkened control room, where the only light was the dim glow from the indicator boards. The Quartermaster on watch stood motionless beside the steering levers.
Gerry noticed that he had a tendency to rise a couple of inches off the floor with each step. The pull of Earth was already lessening! He threw the switch that controlled the attraction-gear, and heard a faint hiss of shifting gravity plates beneath their feet. The feeling and impression of normal weight returned.
For a moment Gerry and Steve stood looking out one of the big duralite windows of the control room. At this level the legions of stars gleamed with an unreal brilliance in the dead black of the heavens. The Earth was a vast globe behind them, glowing for a quarter of its surface with the familiar outlines of the continents still visible. With the lessening pull, the Viking had increased speed to five thousand, but she seemed to be standing still in comparison with the vastness of space.
"Funny thing, Chief," Steve Brent said meditatively, "Olga Stark and Chester Sand are not supposed to have met before they came aboard this ship—but I saw them whispering together in that dark corner off Corridor 6 as I came forward."
"Maybe she's just a fast worker," Gerry said. For a moment the incident irritated him, but then he shrugged and forgot it. On a purely scientific and exploratory expedition of this kind, there was no possible motive for any underhand work.
The days passed in slow progression. The Viking had attained her maximum speed of fifty thousand miles an hour as the ceaseless drive of her great rocket motors forced her ahead, a speed possible in the void of outer space where there was no air to create friction. For all her great speed by Earthly standards, she was but crawling slowly across the vastness of Interplanetary space.
Life on board had settled down to a smooth routine. Now and then alarm bells would suddenly ring a warning of the approach of a small planetesimal or some other vagrant wanderer of outer space, and the ship would change course to avoid a collision. Otherwise there was little excitement. Astern, the familiar Earth had dwindled to a shining disc—like the button on an airman's uniform. Ahead, the cloud-veiled planet of Venus drew steadily nearer.