"I think we'd better, don't you?" said Dynamon.
"It would save a lot of food and oxygen," the scientist replied. "You see, even at our tremendous rate of speed now, it will take two hundred and twenty-six days to reach the outer layer of Saturn's atmosphere. Until we actually land the ship, there is no conceivable emergency that couldn't be handled by a skeleton crew."
"Quite right," said Dynamon. "I'll have Mortoch take charge of the arrangements, if you will stand by to supervise the technical side."
"It's as good as done," said Thamon. "We have the newest type of refrigeration system in the main saloon. I can drop the temperature one hundred and fifty degrees in one-fifth of a second. By the way, I was a little worried by that outburst of Mortoch's when we were talking about Keltry."
"Oh, well," said Dynamon, "Mortoch is only human. He was a Senior Decurion and I was passed over him for this job. He couldn't help but be a little jealous. But he will be all right, he's a soldier, after all."
"I hope so," said Thamon, doubtfully.
"Why certainly," Dynamon affirmed. "As a matter of fact, I wish he had been given the command in the first place. Between you and me, I'm not too keen about this expedition to a comparatively unknown planet. Thamon, why on earth weren't human beings content to stay at home? Why did they have to go to such endless pains to construct these Cosmos Carriers? Before these things were invented, the inhabitants of Earth and the inhabitants of Mars didn't know that each other existed, and they were perfectly happy about it. But when they both began spinning around through space between the planets, all of a sudden the Solar System was not big enough to hold both Peoples."
"It's some fatal restlessness in the make-up of human beings," Thamon replied. "Do you realize how far back Man has been trying to reach out to other planets?"
"Well, the first successful trip in a Cosmos Carrier was made seventy-eight years ago," said Dynamon.
Thamon chuckled.