Rocket Ship Galileo (26 page)

Von Hartwick started to protest. Cargraves cut him short. “Stow it! You haven’t been granted any pardon; we’ve simply been picking your brains. You are a common criminal, going back to appeal your case.”

They felt out the ship for the next several hours, with time out only to eat. The result of the practice on the course and speed were null; careful check was kept by instrument to see that a drive in one direction was offset by the same amount of drive in the opposite direction. Then they slept.

They needed sleep. By the time they got it they had been awake and active at an unrelenting pace for one full earth-day.

When they woke Cargraves called Art. “Think you could raise earth on this Nazi gear, kid?”

“I’ll try. What do you want me to say and who do you want to talk to?”

Cargraves considered. Earth shone gibbous, more than half full, ahead. The Nazi base was not in line-of-sight. That suited him. “Better make it Melbourne, Australia,” he decided, “and tell them this—”

Art nodded. A few minutes later, having gotten the hang of the strange set, he was saying endlessly: “Space Ship
City of Detroit
calling UN police patrol, Melbourne; Space Ship
City of Detroit
calling UN police patrol, Melbourne—”

He had been doing this for twenty-five minutes when a querulous voice answered: “Pax, Melbourne; Pax, Melbourne—calling Space Ship
City of Detroit
. Come in,
City of Detroit
.”

Art pushed up one phone and looked helpless. “You better talk to ’em, Uncle.”

“Go ahead. You tell them what I told you. It’s your show.”

Art shut up and did so.

Morrie let her down carefully and eased her over into a tight circular orbit just outside the atmosphere. Their speed was still nearly five miles per second; they circled the globe in ninety minutes. From that orbit he killed her speed slowly and dipped down cautiously until the stub wings of the
City of Detroit
né
Wotan
, began to bite the tenuous stratosphere in a blood-chilling thin scream.

Out into space again they went and then back in, each time deeper and each time slower. On the second of the braking orbits they heard the broadcast report of the UN patrol raid on the Nazi nest and of the capture of the
Thor
. On the next lap two chains bid competitively for an exclusive broadcast from space. On the third there was dickering for television rights at the field. On the fourth they received official instructions to attempt to land at the District-of-Columbia Rocket Port.

“Want me to take her down?” Morrie yelled above the scream of the skin friction.

“Go right ahead,” Cargraves assured him. “I’m an old man. I want a chauffeur.”

Morrie nodded and began his approach. They were somewhere over Kansas.

The ground of the rocket port felt strange and solid under the ship. Eleven days—only eleven days?—away from the earth’s massive pull had given them new habits. Cargraves found that he staggered a little in trying to walk. He opened the inner door of the lock and waited for the boys to get beside him. Latching the outer door and broke the inner door open, he stepped to the outer door and broke the seal.

As he swung it open, a solid wall of sound beat him in the face, an endless mass of eager eyes looked up at him. Flash guns flickered like heat lightning. He turned back to Ross. “Oh, my gosh!” he said. “This is awful! Say—don’t you guys want to take the bows?”