"You know, Sparks," he said dreamily, "sometimes I wonder if the poetic mind is not more acute than the strictly scientific one. Since I met Diane, and she acquainted me with the symphonic beauties of poetry, I've thought of so many new things. The never-ending wonder of the Saturnian rings, for instance. The problem of space vacuoles—"
"Speaking of vacuoles," I interrupted, "me and you and about fourteen other mariners from the good ship Saturn are going to be in one pretty soon—if by vacuole you mean a hole. Because—"
And then I told him. Misery being, as rumor hath it, a gregarious soul, it did my heart good to see the way he jolted up from his horizontal position.
"But—but, Sparks!" he quavered, "that's terribly unfair!"
"So," I told him, "is betting on the gee-gees. Only one hoss can win, but they all find backers. The point is, what are we going to do about it?"
"Do?" he piped. "What are we going to do? We're going to do plenty. Come on!"
We went to the engine room. There Chief Engineer Garrity heard Biggs' plea with granite aplomb, then slowly shook his head from side to side.
"Ye're no suggestin', Mr. Biggs," he said, "that I try to double the Saturn's speed?"
"You must!"
Garrity grinned mirthlessly, ducking his grizzled head to designate the laboring, old-fashioned hypatomics in the firing room. "Them motors," he said, "is calculated to carry us from Earth to Venus, and visey-versey, in ten days. By babyin' 'em we can make it in nine. By strainin' 'em we can make it in eight—mebbe.