"How long were we floating around out there?"
"Three weeks, according to the chronometer. The Saylor boys gave us a stiff shot."
"_Ouch!_" Bob groaned. Then he looked at Starre Lowenthal with determination. "Miss, pardon me if I say that this deal you and your granddad cooked up is plain screwy! With us on the butt end. But I'm going to put this to you plainly. We can catch up with the Saylor brothers even if they are three weeks ahead of us. The Saylor ship and ours both travel on the HH drive--inertia-less. But the asteroid has plenty of inertia, and so they'll have to haul it down to Earth by a long, spiraling orbit. We can go direct and probably catch up with them a few hundred thousand miles this side of Earth. And we can have a fling at getting the asteroid back!"
Her eyes sparkled. "You mean--" she cried. Then her attractive face fell. "Oh," she said. "_Oh!_ And when you get it back, you'll land it."
"That's right," Bob said grimly. "We're in business. For us, it's a matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is your marriage--sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three can work as a team if you're willing. We'll fight the other problem out later. Okay?"
Queazy looked from one to another of them. He waved his hand scornfully at Bob. "You're plain nuts," he complained. "How do you propose to go about convincing the Saylor brothers they ought to let us have the asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry long-range weapons. And we couldn't ram the Saylor brothers' ship--not without damaging our own ship just as much. Go ahead and answer that."
Bob looked at Queazy dismally. "The old balance-wheel," he groaned at Starre. "He's always pulling me up short when I go off half-cocked. All I know is, that maybe we'll get a good idea as we go along. In the meantime, Starre--ahem--none of us has eaten in three weeks...?"
Starre got the idea. She smiled dazzlingly and vanished toward the galley.
Bob Parker was in love with Starre Lowenthal. He knew that after five days out, as the ship hurled itself at breakneck speed toward Earth; probably that distracting emotion was the real reason he couldn't attach any significance to Starre's dumbbell-shaped ship, which trailed astern, attached by a long cable.