“How does she look, Multhaus?” he asked.
Both of the men were checking the readings of the instruments. A computerman second class was punching the readings into the small table calculator as Multhaus read off the numbers.
“I think she weathered it, sir,” the chief said cautiously, “but she sure took a devil of a beating. And look at the power factor readings! We were tossing away energy as though we were S-Doradus or something.”
They worked for nearly an hour to check through all the circuits to find what damage—if any—had been done by the strain of Earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields. All in all, the Brainchild was in pretty good shape. A few circuits needed retuning, but no replacements were necessary.
Multhaus, who had been understandably pessimistic about the ship’s ability to lift herself from the surface of even a moderate-sized planet like Earth, looked with new respect upon the man who had designed the power plant that had done the job.
Mike the Angel called the bridge and informed Captain Quill that the ship was ready for full acceleration.
Under control from the bridge, the huge ship yawed until her nose—and thus the line of thrust along her longitudinal axis—was pointed toward her destination.
“Full acceleration, Mister Gabriel,” said Captain Quill over the intercom.
Mike the Angel watched the meters climb again as the ship speared away from the sun at an ever-increasing velocity. Although the apparent internal acceleration remained at a cozy one gee, the acceleration in relation to the sun was something fantastic. When the ship reached the velocity of light, she simply disappeared, as far as external observers were concerned. But she still kept adding velocity with her tremendous acceleration.
Finally her engines reached their performance peak. They could drive the Brainchild no faster. They simply settled down to a steady growl and pushed the ship at a steady velocity through what the mathematicians termed “null-space.”