"Sorry, Crown, but this lady is conducting a highly important psychological research, so your purely social claims will have to wait until after the scientific work is done." "Why narrow the field of investigation?" laughed the girl. "I'd rather widen it, myself--I might prefer a general, even to a physicist!" They went up to the main saloon and joined the melee there, and after one dance with Verna--all he could claim in that crowd of men--Crowninshield turned to Brandon. "You two seem to know Miss Pickering extraordinarily well. Would I be stepping on your toes if I give her a play?" "Clear ether as far as we're concerned." Brandon shrugged his shoulders. "She's been kicking around under foot ever since she was knee high to a duck--we gave her her first lessons on a slide rule." "Don't be dumb, Norman. That woman's a knock-out--a riot--a regular tri-planet call-out!" "Oh, she's all x, as far as that goes. She's a good little scout, too--not half as dumb as she acts--and she's one of the squarest little aces that ever waved a plume; but as for _playing_ her--too much like our kid sister." "Good--me for her!" and they made their way back down to the control room. Stevens, after his one dance with Nadia, had already returned. Brandon and Crowninshield found him seated at the calculating machine, continuing a problem which already filled several pages of his notebook. "'Smatter, Steve? So glad to see a calculator and some paper that you can't let them alone?" "Not exactly--just had a thought a day or so ago. Been computing the orbit of the wreckage of the _Arcturus_ around Jupiter. Think we should salvage it--the upper half, at least. It was left intact, you know." "H ... m ... m. That would be nice, all right. Dope enough?" "Got the direction solid, from my own observations; the velocity's a pretty rough approximation though. But after allowing for my probable error, it figures an ellipse of low eccentricity, between the orbits of Io and Europa. Its period is short--about two days." "Isn't it wonderful to have a brain?" Brandon addressed the room at large. "The kid's clever. Nobody else would have thought of it, except maybe Westfall. Let's see your figures. Um ... m ... m. According to that, we're within an hour of it, right now." He turned to the pilot and sketched rapidly. "Get on this line here, please, and decelerate, so that the stuff'll catch up with us, and pass the word to the lookouts. Stevens and I will take the bow plates. "That's a good idea," he went on to Stevens, as they took their places at main and auxiliary ultra-banks. "Lot of plunder in that ship. Instruments, boats, and equipment worth millions, besides most of the junk of the passengers--clothes, trunks, trinkets, and what-not. You're there, bucko!" "Thanks, Chief," ... and they fell silent, watching the instruments carefully, and from time to time making computations from the readings of the acceleration and flight meters.