"Damn!" I groaned, "and double-damn!" I knew what had happened. It was that confounded new invention of Lancelot Biggs'. It was a uranium audio plate which, when activated in low radiations, acted as what you might call a "time-speech-trap."
In other words, I was talking to Allonby not as he was now, but as he had been five months ago!
Don't ask me how it works. I'm a stranger here myself. Anyhow, I shook my head, shifted the dials, picked up Allonby in the current time level, got a take-off order and relayed it to the bridge. Pretty soon a bell dinged, another one donged, and a slow, humming vibration tingled through the ship as our hypatomics caught hold. I steadied myself for the lift—
And whammo! The stars exploded and seven mules let me have it in the you-know-where, and there I was on the ceiling, squawking like a stuck pig and scrambling to get down to my control banks. I didn't scramble long. For suddenly the artificial gravs came on and I made a perfect three-point landing—nose, knees and navel—on the floor.
I got up gingerly. No arms or legs fell off when I shook myself, so I started for the bridge to ask Cap Hanson whyfore. But just as I reached the door it swung open, and in came the skipper himself. He was swearing with the dull, unemotional fluidity of a man who has abandoned hope.
I knew, then. I said, "Biggs, Skipper?"
He moaned, "Talk to me, Sparks. Talk quick, an' make it interestin'. I promised Diane I wouldn't commit no mayhems on him, but I'm weakenin'. I keep thinkin' how I'd like to—"
"Easy, Cap," I soothed. "Some day he'll choke to death on his own Adam's-apple. But how come Biggs made the take-off? He's only the First Mate on this barge."
Hanson snapped, "Don't call this crate a barge!" Then he added, "Well, Sparks, I lost a bet with Biggs on the last trip. An' he won the right to navigate the next three Venus-to-Earth shuttles. So—" He shrugged. "He's handlin' the controls."
"Maltreating," I corrected, "is the word. I like Lancelot Biggs, Skipper. But I'd as soon ride a Martian firebird bareback as hop gravs with him in the turret. What do you say we—"