"It's obvious what we must do," she said, sounding quite capable. "Tillie needs a little advice on love making. I'm quite sure that Oscar, or whatever his name is, would pursue Tillie if she stopped CHASING him. We've got to convince her of that and get her to try it."
Evidently she didn't need convincing. She got the idea direct from Lahoma and acted on it. The silver flash ahead swung away. Half an hour later it showed up in the stern telescope.
This seemed to delight Tillie, the tellecarbon, no end. She cavorted about like a drunken puppy, giving us all a bad case of sea sickness.
"Now," Lahoma gasped. "We must coax Tillie into setting us back on Earth. I don't know how you men feel, but I would be quite willing to turn Tillie loose so she could join her mate—once we were safely home."
"But if we did that we wouldn't be able to explore the Solar System!" Jud exclaimed.
"And if we don't we'll probably wind up flattened against some asteroid as soon as Tillie decides to break out of her shell," Lahoma snapped.
I blanched at the thought. Mallory's knees buckled and he sat down on the floor weakly. Jud himself swayed a little.
That eventuality just hadn't occurred to us before. Obviously Tillie would get tired of the chase and want to settle down and get cozy some day. If she hadn't acquired the idea from us she might figure it out by herself and dash us against some jagged bit of space rock.
"All right. All right," Jud said weakly. "Let's see if we can talk Tillie into taking us back home in exchange for her freedom. As an arguing point you might all visualize the smashed ship, with her still imprisoned and all of us dead and unable to help free her."
An invisible hand seemed to push us to the back of the ship. We were picking up speed faster than we ever had before.