interrupted. “I’ve got a call coming in.” She added, “ Rolling Stone, Luna, to Traffic—come in, Traffic.”
There was a whir and a click and a female voice chanted: “Traffic Control to Rolling Stone, Luna—routine traffic precautionary: your plan as filed will bring you moderately close to experimental rocket satellite of Harvard Radiation Laboratory. Hold to flight plan; you will fail contact by ample safe margin. End of message; repeat—” The transcription ran itself through once more and shut off.
“ Now they tell us!” Hazel exploded. “Oh, those cushion warmers! Those bureaucrats! I’ll bet that M-S-G has been holding in the tank for the past hour waiting for some idiot to finish discussing his missing laundry.”
She went on fuming: “‘Moderately close!’ ‘Ample safe margin!’ Why, Roger, the consarned thing singed my eyebrows!”
“‘A miss is as good as a mile.’”
“A mile isn’t nearly enough, as you know darn well. It took ten years off my life—and at my age I can’t afford that.”
Roger Stone shrugged. After the strain and excitement he was feeling let down and terribly weary; since blast-off he had been running on stimulants instead of sleep. “I’m going to cork off for the next twelve hours. Get a preliminary check on our vector; if there’s nothing seriously wrong, don’t wake me. I’ll look at it when I turn out.”
“Aye aye, Captain Bligh.”
First check showed nothing wrong with their orbit; Hazel followed him to bed—“bed” in a figurative sense, for Hazel never strapped herself to her bunk in free fall, preferring to float loosely wherever air currents wafted her. She shared a stateroom with Meade. The three boys were assigned to the bunkroom and the twins attempted to turn in—but Lowell was not sleepy. He felt fine and was investigating the wonderful possibilities of free fall. He wanted to play tag. The twins did not want to play tag; Lowell played tag anyhow.
Pollux snagged him by an ankle. “Listen, you! Weren’t you enough trouble by being sick?”
“I was not sick!”
“So? Who was it we had to clean up after? Santa Claus?”
“There ain’t any Santa Claus. I was not sick. You’re a fibber, you’re a fibber, you’re a fibber!”
“Don’t argue with him,” Castor advised. “Just choke him and stuff him out the lock. We can explain and correct the ship’s mass factor tomorrow.”
“I was not sick!”
Pollux said, “Meade had quite a bit of sack time on the leg down. Maybe you can talk her into taking him off our hands?”
“I’ll try.”
Meade was awake; she considered it. “Cash?”
“Sis, don’t be that way!”
“Well…three days’ dishwashing?”
“Skinflint! It’s a deal; come take charge of the body.”
Meade had to use the bunkroom as a nursery; the boys went forward and slept in the control room, each strapping himself loosely to a control couch as required by ship’s regulations to avoid the chance of jostling instruments during sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MIGHTY ROOM
C APTAIN S TONE HAD ALL HANDS
with the exception of Dr. Stone and Lowell compute their new orbit. They all worked from the same data, using readings supplied by Traffic Control and checked against their own instruments. Roger Stone waited until all had finished before comparing results.
“What do you get, Hazel?”
“As I figure, Captain, you won’t miss Mars by more than a million miles or so.”
“I figure it right on.”
“Well, now that you mention it, so do I.”
“Cas? Pol? Meade?”
The twins were right together to six decimal places and checked with their father and grandmother to five, but Meade’s answer bore no resemblance to any of the others. Her father looked it over curiously. “Baby girl, I can’t figure out how you got this out of the computer. As near as I can tell you have us headed for Proxima Centauri.”
Meade looked at it with interest. “Is that so? Tell you what: let’s use mine and see what
There was a whir and a click and a female voice chanted: “Traffic Control to Rolling Stone, Luna—routine traffic precautionary: your plan as filed will bring you moderately close to experimental rocket satellite of Harvard Radiation Laboratory. Hold to flight plan; you will fail contact by ample safe margin. End of message; repeat—” The transcription ran itself through once more and shut off.
“ Now they tell us!” Hazel exploded. “Oh, those cushion warmers! Those bureaucrats! I’ll bet that M-S-G has been holding in the tank for the past hour waiting for some idiot to finish discussing his missing laundry.”
She went on fuming: “‘Moderately close!’ ‘Ample safe margin!’ Why, Roger, the consarned thing singed my eyebrows!”
“‘A miss is as good as a mile.’”
“A mile isn’t nearly enough, as you know darn well. It took ten years off my life—and at my age I can’t afford that.”
Roger Stone shrugged. After the strain and excitement he was feeling let down and terribly weary; since blast-off he had been running on stimulants instead of sleep. “I’m going to cork off for the next twelve hours. Get a preliminary check on our vector; if there’s nothing seriously wrong, don’t wake me. I’ll look at it when I turn out.”
“Aye aye, Captain Bligh.”
First check showed nothing wrong with their orbit; Hazel followed him to bed—“bed” in a figurative sense, for Hazel never strapped herself to her bunk in free fall, preferring to float loosely wherever air currents wafted her. She shared a stateroom with Meade. The three boys were assigned to the bunkroom and the twins attempted to turn in—but Lowell was not sleepy. He felt fine and was investigating the wonderful possibilities of free fall. He wanted to play tag. The twins did not want to play tag; Lowell played tag anyhow.
Pollux snagged him by an ankle. “Listen, you! Weren’t you enough trouble by being sick?”
“I was not sick!”
“So? Who was it we had to clean up after? Santa Claus?”
“There ain’t any Santa Claus. I was not sick. You’re a fibber, you’re a fibber, you’re a fibber!”
“Don’t argue with him,” Castor advised. “Just choke him and stuff him out the lock. We can explain and correct the ship’s mass factor tomorrow.”
“I was not sick!”
Pollux said, “Meade had quite a bit of sack time on the leg down. Maybe you can talk her into taking him off our hands?”
“I’ll try.”
Meade was awake; she considered it. “Cash?”
“Sis, don’t be that way!”
“Well…three days’ dishwashing?”
“Skinflint! It’s a deal; come take charge of the body.”
Meade had to use the bunkroom as a nursery; the boys went forward and slept in the control room, each strapping himself loosely to a control couch as required by ship’s regulations to avoid the chance of jostling instruments during sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MIGHTY ROOM
C APTAIN S TONE HAD ALL HANDS
with the exception of Dr. Stone and Lowell compute their new orbit. They all worked from the same data, using readings supplied by Traffic Control and checked against their own instruments. Roger Stone waited until all had finished before comparing results.
“What do you get, Hazel?”
“As I figure, Captain, you won’t miss Mars by more than a million miles or so.”
“I figure it right on.”
“Well, now that you mention it, so do I.”
“Cas? Pol? Meade?”
The twins were right together to six decimal places and checked with their father and grandmother to five, but Meade’s answer bore no resemblance to any of the others. Her father looked it over curiously. “Baby girl, I can’t figure out how you got this out of the computer. As near as I can tell you have us headed for Proxima Centauri.”
Meade looked at it with interest. “Is that so? Tell you what: let’s use mine and see what
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