My idea wanting to be out to the side (and bless my impulses for realizing it was the one important thing!) was to keep my line and myself out of the beam. An ionic jet doesn’t look hot from the side. But from straight on it’s a lot brighter than an arc light—it’s almost as tight as a laser beam—and I didn’t want to think about what it would do to me, even trailing as I was a hundred yards aft.
Though of course long before it had ruined me, it would have disintegrated my line.
My being out to the side was putting the ship off balance on its jet and presumably throwing its course toward base and Shaula-near little by little into error. But that was the least of my worries, believe me.
I thought for a bit and remembered I could talk to Jeff over my suit radio. I decided to try it, not without misgivings.
I tongued it on and said, “Jeff. Oh, Jeff. I’m out here. You forgot me.”
I was going to say some more, but just then he broke in, angry and so loud it made my helmet ring, with, “Joseph! Did you hear anything then?” A pause, then, “Well, clean the wax out of your ears, stupid, because I did! I think we got an enemy out there!”
Another and longer pause, while my blood curdled a bit thicker, then, “Well, okay, Joseph, I’ll go along with you this time. But if I hear the enemy once more, I’m going to suit up and take a rifle and sit in the airlock door until I’ve potted him.”
I tongued the radio off quick, fearful I’d sneeze or something. I had only one faint consolation: Joseph seemed to be a bit on my side, or maybe he was just lazy.
I thought some more, a mite frantic-like now, and after a while I said to myself, _Been going five minutes now, so I’m doing about a quarter of a mile a second—that’s fifteen miles a minute, wow!—but out here velocities are purely relative. My suit does a little better than a quarter G full on. Okay. I’ll jet to the ship._
No sooner said than acted on—I was beginning to rely too much on impulse now. The suit jet killed my false weight at once and I was off, mighty careful to aim myself along my line or a little outside it, so as not to wander over into the beam.
Pretty soon the tail and Trompled Love were getting noticeably bigger.
I’d built up enough velocity so that I was still gaining on the ship for a few seconds. In fact, I almost made it. My gauntlet was about to close on Trompled Love when the ship started slowly to pull away. Oh, it was frustrating!