"I ain't going to reverse the rockets!"
Rawson looked at the stolid faces of the space hardened crew. Veterans all. The underofficer's men.
When he spoke, Rawson's words came in smooth, clipped phrases. "Mr. Durk, I'll explain briefly why it would be fatal to head straight into the storm. The instruments indicate that the storm drift ahead of the ship is heavily charged with electrons. Our space ship is a charged body. Breaking the relation of the space ship and the drift down mathematically we have the equation
V equals q/r
where V is the velocity of the ship and q the potential of the electronic charge in the center of the drift, and r the radius."
Rawson watched the underofficer's face grow longer and longer, but determinedly he continued.
"Should we head directly into the drift we will be up against the following law—the shorter the distance in which a given amount of work is done the greater the force that must be exerted. We will be stalled in the center of the drift. To avoid disaster, the direction of the drift must be at right angles at every point to the space ship. Do you follow?"
Mingled with the lack of comprehension in Durk's eyes was intense bitterness—bitterness over not being appointed captain of the Star Flight after the death of the previous chief officer, whom Durk affectionately called "the old man".
Durk was starting a growl deep down in his alligator throat when the situation was taken out of his hands by the immutable laws that Rawson had just expounded.