space dinghy n.

The story will be that Lady Maud was blown to bits by an internal explosion. We were the only survivors. We were drifting around in a space dinghy when the Jovian raider came along and rescued us. Neat, eh?

That’s why I had to land. You see, she went off by herself in the…. I think if I invent the word ‘space dinghy’ it will give you the idea. I warned her that the…well, an important part was defective; but we had just had a small quarrel and she insisted on spiting me. She never came back. [both ellipses in original]

Approaching Earth, they put their ship into an orbit and rendered it invisible. For about two more years they stayed in the ship, except for careful exploratory trips in a gravity-diverting space dinghy.

‘But sir,’ he turned to Fairweather, ‘how did you get her back to earth?’ ‘A device for exploiting the capabilities of the negative time formula. It’s not a spaceship, really. More a space dinghy. I’m sure you can deduce the type of vehicle we used.’

‘Our shuttle.’ Somehow Ivo had visualized a pint-sized rocket, a space-dinghy built for two. He should have known better. The launch vehicle was thirty-three feet in diameter at the base and not much smaller at the top.

Although Orton was well-known and had been scouted hundreds of times in the not-so-distant past, she observed all the rules for approaching an alien world, ordering out a scout party in the space dinghy.

The Unquenchable finally notices us, and reaches out with an ion harness to pull our little space dinghy inside their cargo hold.