Garrity said cajolingly, "Look, lad—mayhap you don't understand the difficulties we're in? Suppose you be a good chap an' let the Skipper take the controls—?"
Lancelot Biggs said, "Just be patient. I would like to explain, but I think I'd better not! Not yet—at any rate."
Cap looked at me. I put in my two cents' worth.
"Mr. Biggs," I said, "you can read those charts on the wall. Don't you see we're being carried hundreds of thousands of miles off course? This vacuole is traveling way over to the right of our course, hitting an abnormal rate of speed—and we're imbedded in it like a fly in amber. We've already lost the race; pretty soon we'll lose our—" I stopped, not wanting to say "lives" in front of Diane.
Lancelot looked at me somberly.
"I should have thought, Sparks," he told me, "that you would understand. With your education and training—" But he seemed undecided. He stared at Diane. "Diane—you believe in me, don't you?"
Boy, I'll tell you that gal has what it takes. A long moment passed, during which Diane looked squarely into Lancelot Biggs' eyes. What she found there, only she could tell you. But, "Yes, Lancelot," she said. "I trust you."
His shoulders stiffened, then, just the slightest bit. And a faint smile gathered at the corners of his lips. He said, "That's all I wanted to hear. Very well, gentlemen, be patient for just ten more hours...."
By far the worst feature of being caught in a vacuole is the fact that you're completely isolated from the rest of the universe. These super-spatial areas; these dead spots of hyper-emptiness, do not obey the common laws of space mechanics. There's no radio transmission through a vacuole; the only laws that seem to apply are the laws of motion and relativity.