"When you give her that bud," I told him, "you can say to her, 'Roses are red, violets are blue; the rest went whacky, but this one grew'."
Biggs said defensively, "Well, anyhow, this proves my theory about growth stimulation was right. It may not work in open space, but it will work on a planet where there are atmosphere blankets against cosmic ray penetration. And Diane will get one rose."
And with painstaking care he transferred the bud to a glass of water. Poor little pitiful symbol of a noble experiment which flopped.
And that was all until ten hours later. It's a shame to gloss over the excitement of those next ten hours, but it was mostly technical stuff you Earth-lubbers wouldn't understand.
The main point is that, though as a botanist Lancelot Biggs may be a bum Burbank, as an astrogator he is in a class by himself. His computations proved correct to four decimal places. We held the Saturn on the V-I unit until we were so close to Iapetus that the permalloy walls of our space-freighter started humming with tropospheric pressure, then released to normal acceleration, and—bingo! There we were, smack-dab over the new and as yet unnamed mining town. Just as Biggs had predicted.
Our appearance out of seemingly thin air—you understand what I mean if you know how the velocity-intensifier works—not only created a sensation on Iapetus; it darned near created an accident in our little segment of atmosphere. For when we switched over we found ourselves not more than a quarter mile from the Cosmic Corporation's Gemini, which had been easing into Iapetus complacently unaware that we were within several thousand miles.
Instantly there was hectic excitement upon both ships. Landing rocket jets flared, grav clamps growled, and the two of us hurtled groundward like brickbats.
It was a photo finish. We nosed into one cradle just as they stern-jetted into a second. And just as Cap Hanson leaped from our airlock, the Gemini's skipper burst from theirs.
Hanson bawled, "IPS-freighter-Saturn-landing-with-a-cargo-of-flower-seeds—"