Babs’ voice came from the side of the saloon where she sat at a vision-tube and microphone.  She was saying professionally: 

“I assure you it’s true.  We are linked to you by the Dabney field, in which radiation travels much faster than light.  When you were a little boy didn’t you ever put a string between two tin cans, and then talk along the string?”

Cochrane stopped beside her scowling.  She looked up.

“The press association men on Luna, Mr. Cochrane.  They saw us take off, and the radar verified that we traveled some hundred of thousands of miles, but then we simply vanished!  They don’t understand how they can talk to us without even the time-lag between Earth and Lunar City.  I was explaining.”

“I’ll take it,” said Cochrane.  “Jones wants you in the control-room.  Cameras?  Who was handling the cameras?”

“Mr. Bell,” said Babs briskly.  “It’s his hobby, along with poker-playing and children.”

“Tell him to get some pictures of the star-fields around us,” said Cochrane, “and then you can see what Jones wants.  I will do a little business!”

He settled down in the seat Babs had vacated.  He faced the two press-association reporters in the screen.  They had seen the ship’s take off.  It was verified beyond any reasonable question.  The microwave beam to Earth was working at capacity to transmit statements from the Moon Observatory, which annoyedly conceded that the Spaceways, Inc., salvaged ship had taken off with an acceleration beyond belief.  But, the astronomers said firmly, the ship and all its contents must necessarily have been destroyed by the shock of their departure.  The acceleration must have been as great as the shock of a meteor hitting Luna.

“You can consider,” Cochrane told them, “that I am now an angel, if you like.  But how about getting a statement from Dabney?”

A press-association man, back on Luna, uttered the first profanity ever to travel faster than light.

“All he can talk about,” he said savagely, “is how wonderful he is!  He agrees with the Observatory that you must all be dead.  He said so.  Can you give us any evidence that you’re alive and out in space?  Visual evidence, for broadcast?”

At this moment the entire fabric of the space-ship moved slightly.  There was no sound of rockets.  The ship seemed to turn a little, but that was all.  No gravity.  No acceleration.  It was a singularly uncomfortable sensation, on top of the discomfort of weightlessness.

Cochrane said sardonically: 

“If you can’t take my word that I’m alive, I’ll try to get you some proof!  Hm.  I’ll send you some pictures of the star-fields around us.  Shoot them to observatories back on Earth and let them figure out for themselves where we are!  Displacement of the relative positions of the stars ought to let them figure things out!”

He left the communicator-board.  Holden still looked greenish in his strap-chair.  The main saloon was otherwise empty.  Cochrane made his way gingerly to the stair going below.  He stepped into thin air and descended by a pull on the hand-rail.