"You want me to help you drag 'em in now?" I asked.
"No thanks, Sparks. I think we'll leave them out till tomorrow," he said.
"But Captain Hanson—" I began.
"Tomorrow."
"After all, I'm just a radioman," I shrugged. "It's your funeral," I said.
He got them inside the next day. I saw them lying in the corridor beside the airlock, covered with a strip of tarpaulin. And he got them in just in time, too, for about an hour later we hit the Heaviside layer.
We set out our Ampie and eased through all right. From there on, it was just an easy coast to Earth. We threw out our lug-sails—the retractable metal fins which give "space luggers" their name—and put on the power brakes. In a couple of hours we were settling into our hangar off New York spaceport.
I closed out my key and locked the radio room. There was nothing more I could do now. So I went up to the control turret and found Captain Hanson gnawing the fingernail of his index finger down to the second joint.
"Well, Captain?" I said.