I couldn’t help it. I jumped to my feet,
grabbed Dick’s hand, and shook it warmly while patting his shoulder,
“Good man! That is exactly what you and I
are going to attempt to do.”
Courtney burst into tears. I looked down at
her and then over at Melissa, but she was sitting there staring quietly down at
her coffee mug. Nick stood up, walked over, and refilled his coffee mug.
“Drew and Richard, could I talk to you on the
flight deck for a minute? We’ll be back shortly, ladies.”
Then he led the way to the flight deck and
dropped into his chair as I dropped into mine. Dick leaned against the
dashboard. Nick produced his flask and sweetened our coffees.
“Nine months in space? That is too dangerous.
The odds against succeeding and surviving this mission just got astronomically
too high. I do have an idea that may reduce the odds to acceptable levels, but
you may think me mad.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“That’s true, Drew, and thank you for that
remark!”
He looked out the flight deck windows and
said,
“What about taking one of those?”
Richard and I followed his gaze, but all we
could see was the Martian starships parked opposite us on the other side of the
taxiway.
“You’re absolutely right, Nick. We do think
you’re mad. For one thing, we don’t know if they’re even capable of flight—if
they were, then why didn’t the Martians take them when they cleared out? We
don’t know if they have fuel in them, and we can’t check because we don’t know
what a Martian fuel gauge looks like, and even if we knew we don’t know what
fuel they use. Oh, and we don’t know where the filler cap is, or how to open it
either.”
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