"You're an astrogator, they tell me. We can use you if you're not lying."
"Dave ..." Frank began.
"That's enough. We don't use last names up here. And you!" His one good eye examined Sadie as if she were a bug. "Nurse, eh? Know anything about radiation burns?"
"I was in the uranium mines, sir."
"Good. Your job's to help the doctors keep me on my feet a few months longer. Haven't time to die just yet."
"How the Champ?" Mike changed the unpleasant subject.
"Just back from a swing beyond Jupiter." The big man's face lighted up for the first time. "What a ship! Had her up to three quarters light speed. She ran like a dream."
"Three quarters light speed," Frank gasped. "That's around one hundred and forty thousand miles per second."
"She'd have done better, except that we started having some kind of eye trouble ... sort of like seeing double. A damned queer feeling, I tell you. Gives you the screaming meemies.... Well," he came back to normal, "thanks for bringing me an astrogator, Mike. When do we move?"
"As soon as the Boss sets a date with New Washington."