"Jack!" cried the girl. "I hoped you'd be on duty. This is Captain Sage; you've heard of him. The Shots are tearing the town apart to find us. Can you put us up for the night?" As the one-armed man nodded she rattled on: "We hear the Shots have something better than Plutonium."
Again the nod.
"Know where their labs are located?"
Jack picked up a pencil, wrote a sentence and handed her the pad.
"Somewhere under the Polar Sea?" Sadie frowned. "Not much chance of hitting a hideout like that with a V-60. How far along are they?"
"One ship finished and given a trial run," wrote the cripple. "The Underground managed to get 542 on board but I haven't received any information for weeks."
"How about her speed?" Frank put in.
"Last report from 542 said she travels at One Gravity acceleration," was the scribbled reply.
"One G?" The spaceman wanted to laugh but dared not because of that scarred, impassive face. "Why that's only a little more than 32 feet per second. My patrol ship can hit ten G's."
"You got me wrong," came the answer. "One G is only 16.1 feet for the first second, but after that, the speed of the new ship increases steadily at the rate of 32.2 feet per second."