“It’ll be ‘rocket away’ for you, young fellow!” Steve said sternly. “Up on my finger, Bud!”
The bird did as he was ordered. They took him down the hall to Mr. Whittle’s room. Bud’s owner, off duty now, was a tall, spidery crewman with a big Adam’s apple. He always gave his pet full run of the ship.
Mr. Whittle whistled to the parakeet, but the bird stayed on Steve’s finger.
Mr. Whittle chuckled. “Hey, I believe he likes you two better than his master!”
“We like him, too,” Sue told the crewman.
“You can keep him for a few days if you want to,” Mr. Whittle said. “I’m going to be pretty busy after we land.”
“Gee, we’d like to look after him!” Steve answered.
“If you take him outside on Callisto, you’ll have to put him in that air-tight cage over there I had made. It’s sort of like a space suit for him.”
Sue and Steve played with Bud in the room they used for games until it was time to “strap down” for landing. Then they went to the couch hall and lay down on cots like the other space travelers were doing. They buckled straps across their bodies to keep them in place.
For a long time, Steve and Sue lay there as the big freighter began cutting its rushing speed. It felt to Steve as if a giant anvil were crushing downward on his chest. Take-off and landing were always the roughest moments in space travel, as the twins had already found out on other space trips.