"Preposterous, young man! The Saturn will skirt Sol at a distance of twenty million miles!"
"The correct estimate, sir," disagreed Biggs gently, "is ten. I fear you neglected to take into consideration the space-warp created by Sol's tremendous mass. I have prepared alternative course instructions, sir. With your permiss—"
"Silence, Lieutenant!" Gilchrist was wild with fury now. He had no ears for logic. He wouldn't have listened to a first-run performance of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, with sound effects by the original cast. "I've heard enough! You are guilty of having deliberately conspired to disturb, alarm and distress your shipmates, of having maliciously essayed an act of sabotage against your ship, and of flagrantly disobeying the commands of a senior officer.
"Your rocket, sir! You will go below instantly, and confine yourself to quarters under arrest!"
Lancelot Biggs said nothing. His larynx leaped, but without a word he stripped from his breast pocket that prized golden symbol for which all true spacemen would die, and with steady fingers surrendered it to Gilchrist. Diane stifled an impetuous little cry. Cap Hanson, his beefy face a wreath of anxiety, said, "But, Major—"
"I advise you, Captain," rasped Gilchrist viciously, "against defending Mr. Biggs' piratical actions. One thing I will not tolerate is defiance of my orders.
"Donovan—" He turned to me—"you will remove the fruits of Mr. Biggs' labors from the Saturn's hull. The heat which now inconveniences us will vanish when we are no longer the core of an electro-magnet. But just to make sure that no further efforts are made to beguile us into terror created by non-existent dangers, henceforth I will assume responsibility for all electrical stores and equipment aboard. That is all! Get to work!"
Thus ended our gay little tea-party....
And of course it was just as Gilchrist had said. As soon as Biggs' fantastic maze of coils and wiring was removed from the Saturn's hull, the thermometer crept back to normal. But friend Fahrenheit wasn't the only low thing on the Saturn that evening. My spirits were beaucoup slumpy when I slipped around to visit Mr. Biggs after dinner.