We put Morrie's helmet on his head and carried his body into the locks. After we put on our own helmets, we emptied the locks of air and pushed the body out into space. Then we went to tell Gail. _Chapter 10_ Axel and I did not get a chance to have our talk immediately. For one thing, I was completing my disciplinary tours of duty imposed by Dr. Spartan and, for another, I was faced with the extra duties imposed on me by the death of Morrie. Spartan had not attempted again to take my life, a fact that seemed very strange to me. He continued to thrive on his hatred for all of us, particularly Axel and me. Understandably, he wasn't quite as harsh with Gail. Toward Joel he seemed to have adopted a special manner. On the surface he was as curt toward him as toward the others, but I noticed that Joel was given light duties, while the rest of us got the menial tasks and the tough ones. Not that this mattered, because to be busy was not to be bored. But Joel was Spartan's fair-haired boy, there was no doubt about that. Perhaps Spartan saw need for an ally, or maybe he planned to use him for things that were to come. Joel was elated because his chief often invited him into the chartroom for a meal, or to discuss adjustments in our orbit. And I am sure Joel reported every slip of the tongue Axel and I made which showed our true feelings toward Spartan. Before my extra duty--and Gail's--ended, we reached the middle part of our voyage. At this point we had achieved the maximum speed for the trip, which was 40,000 miles per _hour_. This was far short of the ship's theoretical speed of 100,000 miles per _second_, but Mars was too near the earth for that kind of travel. Planners of the trip had computed several possible routes to Mars. The shortest, a mere 40 million miles, would be undertaken when our earth and Mars were nearest each other. Such a route would be like cutting across a vacant lot from one street to the next parallel street. However, there would be fences to climb in the form of the sun's pull of gravity. The ship would have to use power from the first day till the last, and much pay load would have to be sacrificed. The second route would use a minimum of fuel and maximum time. We would accelerate to an orbit intersecting the paths of the earth and Mars. Then the motors would be cut and we would coast in free flight to our destination, where we would decelerate. But such a trip would take from five to seven years.