McBride stamped up and down the hotel lobby for an hour. His luggage came down, all collected and prepared. He called Caldwell, and spoke to him for an hour, but Dr. Caldwell's protestations didn't help McBride. Enid had fallen from a chair while cleaning out a shelf, and was resting easily, no complications. Yes, there was some pain, enough to make Enid want her husband near. No danger, no, but it would be best if he were there. But McBride was still one hundred hours and nineteen hundred million miles away. John McBride didn't see the messenger boy bringing the message until he almost bumped into him. "Mr. McBride, here's your answer," said the lad, and he saw McBride rip the envelope open with a quick gesture to read the following: MC BRIDE: EXPERIMENTAL SPACESHIP _HAYWIRE QUEEN_ AT YOUR COMMAND IF YOU CAN REPAIR ALPHATRON. MEET ME AT HELLSPORT. STEVE HAMMOND (SKYWAYS) McBride said to the messenger: "It's grabbing at straws, but get me a cab and I'll take a whirl at it." "Think you can do it?" asked the lad. "Don't know. I'm desperate. After all, it's a wild chance because if Steve Hammond and his gang haven't been able to repair it, how can I expect to?" "Give it a whirl anyway, sir," said the lad. "That I'll do," said McBride. "And now that cab!" * * * * * The _Haywire Queen_ stood above McBride as he met Steve Hammond. "What's your trouble, John?" asked Hammond. McBride explained. Then he asked: "What's yours?" Hammond smiled wryly. "That's a long, sad tale. We've been trying to increase the efficiency of the drive, you know. We've been hunting up and down the electrogravitic spectrum for a more efficient operating point. We found what we knew already; that we were using the most efficient part of the E-grav range. We went all the way from down low, where the stuff is just beginning to make itself detectable to up high where the equipment is slightly fragile and extremely experimental in construction. Then we took a run at the mec-grav, with absolutely no success other than to ruin a whole bank of relays; the mechanogravitic warp extended farther than we anticipated when we hit the mechanogravitic resonance of the drive bar, and hell sort of flew all over in great hunks. One of the interesting items was the closing of the E-grav field controls, and the resulting power drain over-loaded the alphatron. We limped in using a jury-rigged line from the lifeship's alphatron and made a something-slightly-less than a crash landing here on Pluto. "So now we're either stuck here until we get the new alphatron we ordered, or you can give us a few hints on household repairs." "What's your lifeship's output?" asked McBride, following Hammond into the spacelock. "About eleven hundred alphons." "You'll need about fourteen hundred to take off from Pluto," said John. "How's the big one?" "Deader than the proverbial dodo, whatever that was."