"But we won't do either, and they won't know where to look for us. Instead of turning back on the other side of Jupiter, we'll make a tangential angle out into space. We'll hold it for a month, for safety's sake. We could hold for fifty years, or a hundred, if we needed to. There's fuel and provisions, meant for the mines, enough to last that long.
"At the end of the month, we'll swing back, cut into the path of the sun, and pick up Mars as she comes in from behind Sol.
"On Mars, we can sell the Vulcan. There's an outfit in the Equator Zone, in the mountains west of the Great Canal, that will buy her and no questions asked. I learned about them from a fraternity brother while I was in college. He'd run into some hard luck, they gave him a job, and he was making money hand over fist. They're asteroid miners. The work they do is illegal, but it's perfectly justified morally. What right have men with more money than they know what to do with to own everything in the Solar System? How can a young fellow get a start any more, when corporations and rich old fogies own everything?
"Maybe I'll join up with this outfit. After we've sold the ship I'll see. How does that sound to you?"
"Wonderful, Hugh," Nanlo whispered. "But I don't care about that. All I want is for us to be together. Always. You and me, and our love, together for eternity. That's all I want."
"That's all I want, too, darling Nanlo," Hugh Neils told her passionately, and kissed her. "Together, forever. Just you and me."
Nanlo sighed, with luxuriant happiness, and peered at his radiumite wrist watch.
"The five minutes are up," she murmured. "Can't we go now?"
Hugh Neils nodded.
"We've waited plenty long enough," he decided. "The guard will be asleep by now. The crew were that way when I left them, in the dormitory. I saw that they had plenty of spiked molkai at dinner. Pretended it was my birthday celebration. And the ship's all ready and waiting for the take-off. All we have to do is lock the port and close the rising switch."