Fifth Planet
Page 23
At last they made it. At last they were alongside and clamped. The seals were made and a way opened into the ship. It was efficiently done, and so it should have been, for this was precisely the job of a transit. Cathy went first and Conway followed. He got to the current control before the men in the transit could unhook themselves. As soon as the strong current began to flow in the sheath of the rocket the transit was held prisoner, a tiny barnacle on its flank. He was overwhelmed by the need to hurry. He saw there were manuals and that there was a tolerable computer. He began to make the settings, the settings that would take the ship inexorably away from the Earth. Cathy could reset them once she had calculated a preliminary orbit.
Now at last time was played out. This was the moment of panting, the moment that would take them apart for ever, from now on they would separate endlessly at five million miles a day. Cathy was looking at him with eyes that were dark and strained. ‘I have much to thank you for. I would like to give you a few final moments with your wife.’
Conway knew what this would mean. For a few moments he would be back with the Cathy he had rowed with over the last eleven years, and suddenly he knew he couldn’t take it. With tears in his eyes he shook his head violently and began to grope his way back to the hatch. At last he reached
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The Aftermath
it and ducked down, preparing to open.up the door and to squeeze outwards through the narrow opening. He looked back far down the ship to where Cathy was standing, still watching him. He stood for a moment and then with a muttered exclamation he began to move towards her again. He stopped for a few seconds to put his arm around her waist and to draw her to 'him, then he went over to the big control panel. Quickly he released the transit, and only then pressed the switches that started the big motors. A very faint trembling seemed to fill the ship, and at last he reached down and pressed the main control lever. In an instant he could feel tire drive beginning, he could feel the pressure in his 'legs. The great rocket began to swing outwards from the Earth, it began the journey for which it had been made, the journey to the planet of the whispering grass.