He nodded.
"Just relax in your chair," she advised him. "The acceleration's pretty fierce at first."
A second gong advised them the port was sealed. Several passengers hurried into the lounge, flung themselves into acceleration chairs. A voice, coming over the public address system, announced: "Strap yourselves in carefully. Acceleration begins in three minutes." Twice more the warning was repeated.
Norman Saint Clair's pulse beat rapidly. He felt frightened. Then a faint hum made itself felt rather than heard.
The girl said, "Listen, the engines."
He thought they sounded like the hum of bees on a warm summer day. He shivered, feeling that cold knife of fear slide into his vitals.
A giant hand slammed him in the chest, thrust him deep into the folds of the acceleration chair. His breath was driven from his lungs. He gasped, strained for air painfully. The die was cast, he realized bitterly. There could be no turning back now. They were off.
In a few minutes the pressure slackened. He could turn his head. The girl, he saw, had uncoupled her safety and was rising. He followed her example, stood up unsteadily. The artificial gravity, two-thirds that on Earth, was in effect. It gave him a light giddy sensation. He didn't think he was going to enjoy the voyage.
"Isn't it delightful?" said the girl. "It always makes me feel positively sylph-like."
Now that she was standing he could see how slim was her waist, how full her hips, how long her legs. She stirred some atavistic sense in him. A vein throbbed in his throat. I'm reacting like an animal, he thought. Disgusting.