Just then the door busted open again, and this time in came the skipper's daughter, Diane, followed by our gawky genius, L. Biggs. There was a sight for you. Beauty and the Bust! I know Venusian, Earth Standard, Universal and a smattering of Old Martian, but I don't know the words to describe Diane Hanson. She was paradise wrapped up in a five and a half foot bundle. She was honey and cream and lotus flowers streamlined into a single heartache. She was—well, she was terrific!
Biggs looked like "Before" in the Are You a Man? advertisements. He was lean and lanky and gangly and awkward, and he walked like an anaemic stork on ice-skates. His chief topographical feature was an Adam's-apple that cavorted up and down his neck like a runaway elevator. I'd known Biggs six months, and still couldn't figure out whether he was a sixty horsepower genius or the luckiest mortal in space.
Right now, both he and Diane were wearing size 12 grins. With a prideful sidelong glance at her fiance, the skipper's gal demanded, "Wasn't it wonderful, Dad? Lancelot made that take-off all by himself. Wasn't it something?"
Hanson strangled softly. I did a relief job. I said, honestly, "It was something. I haven't figured out what yet. After I get the curdles out of my brain—"
Mr. Biggs said apologetically, "I'm sorry if I caused you any inconvenience, Sparks. I was trying out a new wrinkle. Instead of using the aft blasts to throw us clear of Sun City spaceport, I used a single jet and reversed the ship's gravity. That gave us an automatic repulsion from the planet, and—"
"What!" roared the skipper. "Look here, Mr. Biggs, one more insane trick like that an' I'll have you cashiered, bet or no bet! I've been hoppin' gravs for nigh onto forty years, an' you can take my word for it, them nonsensical ideas don't work! They only waste fuel, an'—"
"But," interjected Biggs, "I just checked with the engine room, sir. They—they complained about the moment of weightlessness, but admitted we'd saved approximately sixty percent of our normal escape fuel."
"The hell you say!" Cap Hanson's jaw played tag with his breast-bone. Then he gathered up his self-respect and expelled it in an outraged snort. "Nevertheless," he proclaimed, "an' howsoever—the stunt's no good. Come to find out, you'll prob'bly discover we're at least a degree off course an' behind schedule—"
Just at that moment the audio buzzed. I plugged in and contacted the second officer, Lt. Dick Todd, calling from the bridge. Todd said genially, "Hi, Sparks. Tell Mr. Biggs I just finished checking the course revision, will you? And tell him that little trick of his was a whiz-bang. The tape shows we've gained two parsecs on the normal escape and we're point oh-oh-oh on course!"