SOME MORE FROM THE PAGES OF 'REACH FOR MARS':

The newly returned crew members were sitting at one of the tables sipping from steaming mugs of coffee by the time I arrived at the Spaceport Café. I greeted them warmly.

“What the hell are you lot doing back here? I thought the Martians must have gotten you! So what mind-blowing, planet-shattering things have you discovered while you’ve been away, pray tell?” I poured myself a coffee and sat down at their table.

Any response to that question was interrupted and postponed by the entrance of Mel and Sammy. Mel poured two coffees and carried them to the table. She put one down on the table near Sammy and sat down next to me with the other while Sammy was greeting Nick. We all then averted our eyes and looked out the windows at the huge starships parked out there in the hangar and the diminutive (by comparison) Albatross parked among them. When we heard breathing again, we looked back as Nick and Sammy sat down.

“After much investigation, Courtney and I have formed the opinion that the doughnut-shaped semisphere in the cylinder is a Torus,” Dick said in answer to my question…which by now I had forgotten that I had asked.

“It’s a what?” I asked.

“It’s a Torus,” Dick replied.

“It didn’t look at all like a bull shape with horns, and it certainly didn’t look like a Ford,” I replied.

“No, no. Not a T-A-U-R-U-S—a T-O-R-U-S,” Dick spelled.

“What the hell is a T-O-R-U-S, you D-O-R-K?” I spelled back at him, starting to lose patience with this conversation already.

“It’s a geometrical and mathematical formula defining a self-perpetuating energy field. It was very much a theoretical and unproven concept back on Earth, but after playing around with the engine on the shipwreck, I am fairly convinced that it is working proof that the theory is correct.”

“Did you switch it off and turn out the lights before you left?”

“I switched it to standby and turned out the lights before I left. You can’t turn off a self-perpetuating energy field.”

“Of course, I know that. Now then, I’ll bet you are all dying to know the reasoning behind my decision to change the name of this place.”

“I have actually been hoping and praying that the subject would be avoided and forgotten,” Nick said.

I explained to them the reasoning behind my decision to change the name to the Spaceport Café.

“Now I realize why I didn’t feel any qualms about leaving you in charge of this place while I went to fetch these two,” Nick snorted.

“Why is everybody being so very sarcastic lately?” I pondered.

“You do know that the rest of us just refer to it as the hangar simply because that is where it is, right?” Nick asked.

“Oh. OK then; we could call it the Hangar, or the Hangout,” I suggested.

“Drew, your growing penchant for giving names to everything is growing very annoying. If you don’t knock it off, I will start coming up with lots of names to give you—and believe me, you won’t like any of them.” Nick exclaimed.

The rest of the crew applauded.