The Brainchild from Antarctica at 2100 hours, Greenwich time. For three days the officers and men of the ship had as though they were the of their passenger—or cargo, on your point of view.
Supplies were loaded, and the great engine-generators and rechecked. The ship was to go less than two hours take-off time.
The last was Snookums, although, in a more proper sense, he had always been aboard. The little rolled up to the on his and was into the of the ship. Miss Crannon was waiting for him at the air lock, and Mike the Angel was by. Not that he had any particular in Snookums come aboard, but he did have a in Leda Crannon.
“Hello, honey,” said Miss Crannon as Snookums rolled into the air lock. “Ready for your ride?”
“Yes, Leda,” said Snookums in his voice. He rolled up to her and took her hand. “Where is my room?”
“Come along; I’ll you in a minute. Do you Commander Gabriel?”
Snookums his and Mike.
“Oh yes. He to help me.”
“Did you need help?” Mike in of himself.
“Yes. For my experiment. And you offered help. That was very nice. Leda says it is to help people.”
Mike the Angel from Snookums if he he was people. For all Mike knew, he did.
Mike Snookums and Leda Crannon the companionway.
“What did you do today, honey?” asked Leda.
“Mostly I answered questions for Dr. Fitzhugh,” said Snookums. “He asked me thirty-eight questions. He said I was a great help. I’m nice, too.”
“Sure you are, darling,” said Miss Crannon.
“Ye gods,” Mike the Angel.
“What’s the trouble, Commander?” the girl asked, her eyes.
“Nothing,” said Mike the Angel, looking at her with that were blue. “Not a single thing. Snookums is a sweet little tyke, isn’t he?”
Leda Crannon gave him a smile. “I think so. And a of fun, too.”
Very seriously, Mike Snookums on his skull. “How old are you, little boy?”
Leda Crannon’s narrowed, but Mike not to notice while Snookums said: “Eight years, two months, one day, seven hours, thirty-three minutes and—ten seconds. But I am not a little boy. I am a robot.”
Mike an to ask him if he had Leda Crannon of that fact. Mike had been the girl for the past three days (at least, when he’d had the time to watch) and he’d been by the girl’s toward Snookums. She to have herself up in the little robot. Of course, that might be her method of Mike the Angel, but Mike didn’t that.
“Come along to your room, dear,” said Leda. Then she looked again at Mike. “If you’ll wait just a moment, Commander,” she said stiffly, “I’d like to talk to you.”
Mike the Angel touched his in a salute. “Later, perhaps, Miss Crannon. Right now, I have to go to the Power Section to prepare for take-off. We’re going to have fun this against a full Earth without rockets.”
“Later, then,” she said evenly, and off the with Snookums.
Mike the other way with a of relief. As of right then, he didn’t like being an ear-reaming lecture by a redhead. He it toward the Power Section.
Chief Powerman’s Mate Multhaus was the only man in the who came close to being as big as Mike the Angel. Multhaus was two than Mike’s six-seven, but he in at two-ninety. As a powerman, he was tops, and he gave the that, as as power was concerned, he have the ship himself by the on a hand generator.
But neither Mike Multhaus approached the size of the Supply Officer, Lieutenant Keku. Keku was an giant. Six-eight, three hundred fifty pounds, and very little of it fat.
When Mike the Angel opened the door of the Power Section’s room, he came upon a sight. Lieutenant Keku and Chief Multhaus were seated across a table from each other, each with his right on the table, their right hands clasped. The in arms out the tunics. Neither man was moving.
“Games, children?” asked Mike gently.
Whap! The chief’s arm to the table with a that as if the table had shattered. Multhaus had allowed Mike’s entrance to him, while Lieutenant Keku had out just an longer.
Both men to their feet, Multhaus trying not to nurse his hand.
“Sorry, sir,” said Multhaus. “We were just—”
“Ne’ mind. I saw. Who wins?” Mike asked.
Lieutenant Keku grinned. “Usually he does, Commander. All this doesn’t help much against a guy who has pull. And Chief Multhaus has it.”
Mike looked into the big man’s eyes. “Try doing push-ups. With all your weight, it’d put into you. Sit and light up. We’ve got time take-off. That is, we do if Multhaus has for the check-off.”
“I’m any time you are, sir,” Multhaus said, himself into a chair.
“We’ll have a cigarette and then ’em through.”
Keku settled his into a chair and up a cigarette. Mike sat on the of the table.
“Philip Keku,” Mike said musingly. “Just out of curiosity, what of a name is Keku?”
“Damfino,” said the lieutenant. “Sounds Oriental, doesn’t it?”
Mike looked the man over carefully, but rapidly. “But you’re not Oriental—or at least, not much. You look Polynesian to me.”
“Hit it right on the head, Commander. Hawaiian. My name’s Kekuanaoa, but nobody it, so I it to Keku when I came in the Service.”
Mike gave a laugh. “That for your size. Kekuanaoa. A branch of the old Hawaiian family, as I recall.”
“That’s right.” The big Hawaiian grinned. “I’ve got a kid sister that as much as you. And my off at ninety-four a four-ten.”
“What’d he die of, sir?” Multhaus asked curiously.
“Concussion and fractures. He a Ford-Studebaker into a tree at ninety miles an hour. Crazy old ox; he was than the dam’ automobile.”
The of three big men the room.
After a more minutes of throwing, Keku ground out his cigarette and up. “I’d to my post; Black Bart will be calling any minute.”
At that the PA came alive.
“Now this! Now this! Take-off in fifteen minutes! Take-off in fifteen minutes!”
Keku grinned, Mike the Angel, and walked out the door.
Multhaus after him, looking at the closed door.
“A prophet, Commander,” he said. “A prophet.”
The take-off of the Brainchild was not so easy as it might have appeared to anyone who it from the outside. As as the were concerned, it to into the air with a loud, noise, like a in an shaft.
It had been in a in the ice, around the that was Snookums’ brain. As it rose, electric the that the pit, and the Antarctic around it.
Unperturbed, it on rising.
Inside, Mike the Angel and Chief Multhaus as the their close to the mark. The of the ship as it its way up against the of Earth’s and through the Earth’s magnetic field, using the of space itself as the against which it its power, was like the of a note near the of a piano keyboard, or the of a bassoon.
As the of the decreased, the of the ship increased—not linearly, but logarithmically. She through the upper atmosphere, like a live thing, and at last into empty space. When she a of a little over thirty miles second—relative to the sun, and to the ecliptic—Mike the Angel ordered her cut to the power possible which would still the one-gee of the ship and keep the anti-acceleration intact.
“How she look, Multhaus?” he asked.
Both of the men were the of the instruments. A second class was the into the small table as Multhaus read off the numbers.
“I think she it, sir,” the said cautiously, “but she sure took a of a beating. And look at the power readings! We were away energy as though we were S-Doradus or something.”
They for nearly an hour to check through all the to what damage—if any—had been done by the of Earth’s and magnetic fields. All in all, the Brainchild was in good shape. A needed retuning, but no were necessary.
Multhaus, who had been about the ship’s ability to herself from the surface of a moderate-sized like Earth, looked with new respect upon the man who had designed the power plant that had done the job.
Mike the Angel called the and Captain Quill that the ship was for full acceleration.
Under from the bridge, the ship until her nose—and thus the line of along her axis—was pointed toward her destination.
“Full acceleration, Mister Gabriel,” said Captain Quill over the intercom.
Mike the Angel the climb again as the ship away from the sun at an ever-increasing velocity. Although the at a one gee, the in relation to the sun was something fantastic. When the ship the of light, she disappeared, as as were concerned. But she still adding with her acceleration.
Finally her their performance peak. They drive the Brainchild no faster. They settled to a and pushed the ship at a through what the “null-space.”
The Brainchild was on her way.
