forward and through."

In a few moments, the two of them had worked the missile and the cable end to the right front port and in through it. Originating above the plane, it now made a loop through the four open ports. Jonner untied the missile and tied the end to the portion which came into the cabin, making a bowline knot of the loop. Deveet picked up the missile from the floor, where Jonner had thrown it.

"Looks like a spent rocket shell," he commented.

"It's a signal rocket," said Jonner. "The flare trigger was disconnected."

He picked up the microphone and called the Radiant Hope on Phobos.

"We've hooked our fish, Qoqol," he told the Martian, and laid the mike aside.

"What does that mean?" asked Deveet.

"Means we'd better strap in," said Jonner, suiting the action to the words. "You're in for a short trip to Phobos, Deveet."

Jonner pulled back slowly on the elevator control, and the plane began a shallow climb. At 700 miles an hour, it began to attain a height at which its broad wings—broader than those of any terrestrial plane—would not support it.

"I'm trying to decide," said Deveet with forced calm, "whether you've flipped your helmet."

"Nope," answered Jonner. "Trolling for those fish in Mars City gave me the idea. The rest was no more than an astrogation problem, like any rendezvous with a ship in a fixed orbit, which Qoqol could figure. Remember that 6,000-mile television cable the ship's hauling? Qoqol just shot the end of it[Pg 71] down to Mars' surface by signal rocket, we hooked on and now he'll haul us up to Phobos. He's got the ship's engine hooked onto the cable winch."

[Pg 71]

The jets coughed and stopped. The plane was out of fuel. It was on momentum—to be drawn by the cable, or to snap it and fall.

"Impossible!" cried Deveet in alarm. "Phobos' orbital speed is more than a mile a second! No cable can take the sudden difference in that and the speed we're traveling. When the slack is gone, it'll break!"

"The slack's gone already. You're thinking of the speed of Phobos, at Phobos. At this end of the cable, we're like the head of a man in the control section of a space station, which is traveling slower than his feet 

 Prev. P 18/19 next