"You mean Mr. Biggs? No, sir."
"Well, go find him. In the first place, none of us except him know how to chart to intersect Uranus' orbit, and in the second place, we don't know how to operate that crazy velocity intensifier of his'n, and—" Fretfully. "—and in the third place, I don't like this in the first place!"
So I made a tour of the ship, and found him where I should have looked first. In his own cabin, raptly fondling a cabinet photograph of Diane Hanson—soon-to-be Biggs. He glanced up as I entered, and his phenomenal Adam's apple, an auricular escalator if I ever saw one, bobbed in greeting.
"Hello, Sparks," he said dreamily, and held out the picture for my inspection. "She's lovely, isn't she?"
I said, "Don't look now, Mr. Biggs, but that cheery little noise you've been ignoring is the audio buzzer beside your elbow. It's for you. The skipper wants you top-side."
Biggs looked startled.
"Me? But there must be some mistake. I'm off duty until tomorrow morning."
"Guess again," I told him. "It so happens that you are the only mugg—I mean officer—around here who knows how to finagle that velocity intensifier of yours. So you're elected. After all, if we're going to Uranus—"
That got him. He popped off his hip pockets like a thunderbolt from the blooie!
"What! Uranus!"