Lanse Biggs stared at me curiously.
"Why, don't tell me you're afraid, Sparks?"
"It's not that. It's just that I—I'm allergic to soap."
"Nonsense!" pooh-poohed his uncle. "Why, cleanliness is next to godliness, Donovan."
"That's what the rulebooks say," I conceded. "But in this case—cleanliness is next to insanity! Lead on, Sawbones. And here's hoping my veins are positively acrawl with something terrible...."
But no such luck! As it turned out, we didn't wait for the results of the medical examination to be tabulated before we lifted gravs. Something—I wouldn't know what—upset the routine, with the result that we took off that night for Iris. If you ask me, I think it was Cap Hanson's doings. I think he was afraid he might not pass the physical, and he wanted to be sure of being on the bridge for at least one more trip on the Saturn.
So we lifted gravs and with Lanse Biggs at the studs set course and traj for little Iris, a mere hop-skip-and-jump from Earth since we were using the V-I unit. For the first time in a long while, Diane Biggs didn't make the shuttle with us. Biggs' wife—the Old Man's daughter—wasn't feeling up to par. Neither was I, but they didn't give me any raincheck!
Anyhow, in just a little longer time than it takes to digest a day's victuals we were hovering in the strato a mile or so above the capital city of Iris, identifying ourselves to the port authorities on the ground below.
"Who are you," demanded the Iris dispatcher, "and what do you want here?"