So we went.
So we went, and of course with Lancelot Biggs on the bridge handling things it didn't take long to get going. Within a half hour we'd lifted gravs from Sun City, and in three shakes of a rocket's tail, Biggs had twisted our crate's nose about and pointed it at Saturn's eighth satellite, approximately 800,000,000 miles away.
Which left me with nothing to do till Slops gonged the dinner bell, so I was just sitting there reading the latest edition of Spaceways Weekly when the door of my turret opened and in walked L. Biggs.
Well, call it "walked" if you want to. That overworked verb neither accurately nor truthfully describes Lanse Biggs' peculiar style of locomotion. His method of self-propulsion is a sort of cross between a sidle and a galumph. Think of a giraffe wading in oiled ball-bearings, or a Mexican jumping-bean on stalks, and you'll have some idea what I mean.
Anyhow, he came in, closed the door behind him and grinned at me triumphantly.
"Well, Sparks," he chortled, "I found out!"
"Yeah?" I snorted. "Well, now if you mosey around and find in, too, you'll have both sides of the swinging door, won't you? Found out what? What are you talking about?"
"Why, what you wanted to know. I found out what we're carrying to Iapetus."
My interest revived like a zombie at a Black Mass. "You did?" I exclaimed. "Finally wormed it out of the Old Man, eh? Well—what is it?"