Jak said, "He didn't have to be heroic. He used his brains."
Drusilla looked up. Her face blanched even under the Deepurple she had sprayed on. "Jak!" she squeaked.
Jak hung his helmet on the rack, swept some of the broken tubes and severed wires from the control board, placed them in a jagged ball in midair, and savagely canceled the flight plan. He activated the calculator. In a voice like nothing he had heard issue from his own throat, he said, "Your Captain Flim didn't know any more about a pistol than the average citizen. At sea level on Earth, the 6 mm Morgia bullet has a muzzle velocity of 1253 meters per second; and, at a range of, say, 300 meters, the bullet rises 10.5 centimeters above the line of sight at the top of the curve it traces. Out here, with no gravity or air pressure, the bullet travels in a perfectly straight line. I ran Flim's sight all the way up, and when he tried to hit my head as I asked him, he missed me a mile—whatever that means. On Earth, he would have hit regardless of the sights. He had only one shot, because the cold of the dark side contracted the slide; and the recoil, terrific without gravity, sent him and his crew flying."
Jak left the clicking calculator and stared at the motionless Drusilla. "Don't worry about your sweetjet," he rasped. "He'll drift back to his copter. We're changing course for the Patrol station on Callisto to report and have them picked up. I hope the centrifugal force and deceleration is enough to smear you!"
"But, Jak," Drusilla moaned, "you know—"
"Don't start that again!" Jak roared. "You told me a—a dis-truth! What an act! You ought to be in tridies. At two months, Lar BW16177 on Hungaria looked like—You wanted to go to Earth because of that prize in the Photographic Salon! You wanted to taste your fame. What are you trying to do, ruin me? You don't need the Wollongong Obstetric Hospital any more than I do! I'm going back to the Rings, and you can sit on Callisto till you—yes, till you death yourself!"
"Jak," Drusilla murmured. "I never knew you could be so domineering, so," she giggled the naughty word, "masculine."
"Silence!" Jak bellowed. He darted down the passage to quarters and spurted back carrying a gray uniform soaked with tomato juice. He snarled, "I told you to clean this! Now do it!"