Steve Horn chuckled. "Don't ever accuse me of being dead, again," he said mockingly. "At least, I can get up and walk around."
He flipped the drive control, sent the green space-ship whipping past a darting meteor. He spun the ship again, in a tight circle, thrilling to the surge of power released by the light touch of his hand on the controls, then laughed aloud at Myra's instant cry of ecstatic alarm.
"Hush, Infant," he said, "I'm just practicing up for the time when I sell the rights to the constructing of ships identical to this. Boy, will the shekels ever roll in!"
Myra tucked in a loose strand of hair, bent over and kissed Steve on the lobe of his right ear. He squirmed, wriggled, jerked the ship off-course by an inadvertent twitch of his hand, growled playfully, then let the ship travel uncontrolled while he kissed the ear of his wife in return.
"Steve, pulleeze!" Myra said faintly.
"What were you saying about the Indians, dear?" she asked finally.
"'Lo, the poor Indian,'" Steve misquoted, "he has gone the way of all—Damn!" His words were bitten off by the sudden jerking of the ship.
Myra frowned. "Maybe those Indians didn't build this thing so well," she said worriedly. "Remember Peachy said the first few ships built by his people wouldn't fly. It would be just our luck to try and ride an experimental job back to Jupiter."
Steve jiggled the controls.
"Something grabbed us," he said. "Something just reached out and jerked us off-course—tried to hold us back."