"I'll have a bit of that, too. Well, how can we slip her the old triple-cross?" "Steve, you'd throw a woman to the lions?" "With that woman, I'd hate to do it. The S.P.C.A, would haul me in to court for subjecting poor, dumb, defenseless lions to cruelty and inhuman tortures. You're darned right I'd heave her into the drink. But I want to do it in such a way that Sandra Drake will know that it was far from purely coincidental." "O.K., Steve. We're with you. Larry, throw the _Haywire Queen_ into an orbit around Telfu just outside of the danger zone and slap another recorder on the drive. Make it a high velocity orbit, powered all the way. We should be able to circle Telfu in about fifteen minutes with the super drive. Check?" "Sure. Here we go." "Meanwhile, Steve, we'll check a few items on the drive itself. I'm beginning to suspect a huge and celestial soak-up of gravitic power in the region of Telfu." "We can set up the small, experimental drive-model complete with power recorders, spring balances, and torque measuring devices and work on that." "Swell. That's the ticket. Let's go." Hammond hauled the model from the cabinet and plugged in a complex cable from the master control panel. He juggled the dials until the gadget started to work, and then they began to check the efficiency of the device. McBride muttered: "Power generating equipment is running O.K." "Yeah," agreed Hammond. "Everything's on the beam from the explosion chamber to the inverted alphatron. We've got plenty of potential power handy. Larry, zoop in close and check the power equipment on a pure, resistive load." "You mean shut off the drive and coast through the zero region with no drive and with the gravitron running at full output on resistance load?" "Right. This fishy smell has a rare odor. I think we're on the trail of it." "O.K., Steve. Can you wait about three minutes? The first encirclement of Telfu will be over then and we'll have our first experimental curve." "We'll wait." * * * * * The sigma curve was completed, and Larry circled far out and made a fast run toward the planet, in a course similar to the one they used on their first try. Meanwhile, Hammond looked at the curve and grinned. McBride looked over his shoulder and grinned, too. Hammond slapped the curve down on a drawing board and began to plot efficiency against a polar co-ordinate. The curve was roughly circular, but exhibited a tendency towards a cardioid. McBride played with the figures for a minute, and as he opened his mouth to say something, the _Haywire Queen_ gave that sickening lurch and changed abruptly from super drive to the emergencies. "Darn!" said McBride. "This everlasting acceleration changing business is going to make a nervous wreck of me yet."