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The steady pressure on the space-stick increased, it went up farther and farther, and the whole mighty mass of the asteroid streaked out at a tangent through the atmosphere of Satellite III toward the gulf beyond.
"If he can get out of those knots," grinned Wilson, "I'll kiss him on the mouth!" The Eurasian's nostrils distended. "Then," he said. "I most certainly will not try. But Captain Carse, may I have a cigarro before we start on this journey?" Carse had gone over so the space-stick and his eyes were on the visi-screen, but he now turned them to his old foe for a moment. "Not just now, Dr.
There was, to the men in the control room, little consciousness of power unleashed: only the visi-screen and the bank of positional instruments told what had happened with that first, delicate movement of the space-stick. It was an experiment, a feeler.
Her generators hummed with life given them by the firm hand at the controls, and swiftly she arrowed forth into the blue. With a few words as to the visual course, Carse handed the space-stick over to Friday, and devoted himself to the matter of the watches.
Directly in front of Carse was the directional space-stick above its complicated mechanism: above his eyes was the wide six-part visi-screen, which in space would record the whole "sphere" of the heavens: while to his right was the chief control board, a smooth black surface studded with squads of vari-colored buttons and lights, These were the essentials, familiar to any ship navigator; but they were here awesome, for they controlled not the one or two hundred feet of an ordinary craft, but twenty miles of this space-ship of rock.
Then I'll be down to you. Have the upper entrance ready." The Hawk turned back to the controls. Taking the space-stick out of neutral, he moved it very slightly down and to one side. Ban and Friday, not understanding his intention, watched the visi-screen. The whole mass of rock that was the asteroid changed position at a gentle speed.
Twenty miles of rock were hurled out by the firm hand on the space-stick, and that hand only increased its driving pressure when the screaming of the air died away in the depthless silence of outer space.
Up and down up into space, then down to the lab high acceleration and deceleration." He grasped the space-stick, then in neutral, holding the asteroid motionless in the valley. He glanced at the visi-screen again, checked over the main controls and tightened his hand on the stick. "Ready everyone," he said, and gently moved the stick up and forward.
Then, in response to the delicate incline of her space-stick, she lifted sweetly from the crust of Iapetus and at ever-increasing speed burned through the satellite's atmosphere toward the limitless dark leagues beyond. The Hawk was on the trail! Carse took the first watch himself.
In a matter of ten minutes, shipboard routine was arranged, Carse, Friday and Ban splitting the watches. The Hawk, as was his custom, took the first. Friday was relieved of the space-stick and immediately went back for sleep, as did Wilson. Eliot Leithgow did not retire right away, however.
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