"Okay," I said gloomily. "And you watch yours." I stared at him curiously, though. "What's the matter; didn't you know?"
"Know! Of course not! B-but—" His fluid larynx did handsprings. "But I can't go to Uranus! I told her I'd be home in ten days!"
I said, "Then she'd better not hold her breath till you get there. You led with your chin, Lieutenant, when you told the president of our belovéd corporation about your new invention. He'd decided to give it a work-out. And as near as I can figure—" This was what had been worrying me from the start. "It will take us about ten months to get to Uranus, and another twelve to get back!"
But, surprisingly, it was my dejection that snapped Biggs out of his. The impatient-bridegroom-look disappeared from his eyes, and he grinned.
"My goodness, no, Sparks! Don't you understand the operation of my velocity intensifier?"
"I'm a bug-pounder," I told him. "I understand the space code, and dots and dashes, and Ampies, and I know four languages. That's par for the course."
"It's really quite simple. My velocity intensifier is exactly what the name implies—a device that is attached to the hypatomic motors for the purpose of "stepping up" our normal velocity. It's based on the principle of energy-conservation. A series of parallax-condensers absorb all waste energy, pass it through multiple amplifiers, rotors and—"
"—and all points west!" I finished. "It's no go, Lieutenant. That's one of the languages I don't talk. Give it to me in words of one syllable. How long will it take us to get to Uranus and back?"
"Considering the mean distance of Uranus," answered Biggs quietly, "as approximately 1,560,000,000 miles, and if we traveled at our hitherto 'normal' rate of speed, 200,000 m.p.h., it should take us 7,800 hours, or 325 days, to reach there. And slightly longer to return to Earth."
"Ten months!" I wailed. "I knew it!"