“I hope Charley isn’t compromising his independence of thought,” Carol remarked. “He should have come up with some notion of his own, like the rest of us.”
“I doubt that any of us can be really original.” A new voice cut into the conversation, and two more armored figures floated into the chamber. Molly would have known that Charley was the speaker even without the identifying tone pattern supplied by her translator. The smaller newcomer, who looked in his armor like a slightly larger version of Joe, brought up against a wall and continued to express opinion. “That world has been known for a good many thousands of years—more than a hundred thousand—and about all that you can find out about it is what you’ve just said about the atmosphere.”
“That’s a bit exaggerated,” said Joe mildly.
“Only a bit. They’ve been using it as a lab subject all that time, and all the reports that come in get sealed. They want to keep on using it; it’s nearby, and convenient, and does make people think a little. I had a lot of ideas about it, but I’m quite sure Molly’s is the right one, so I’m doing her isotope analyses while she gets crust samples for dating.”
“You said it that way on your preliminary report?” Even Joe’s voice, Molly thought, showed a bit of doubt.
“Of course. How else should I have said it?”
“I’d have tried to find words suggesting that my own imagination had been at work,” replied Carol frankly.
“Even if it hadn’t?”
“Are you changing the subject, or admitting that yours wasn’t?”
“Neither. I was just a little surprised at the suggestion of using words to convey a misleading idea.”
“Or, at least, contrary to one’s own hopes for the fact.”
If Charley grasped Carol’s sarcasm, which was quite obvious to Molly, he gave no sign. “Anyway,” he said, reverting to the earlier point, “I submitted my exercise plan supporting Molly’s work, as 1 said; and they did approve it.”
Chapter Four
Of Course It’s Safe
Molly was tempted to say something, and strongly suspected that Joe felt the same. The mere fact that permission had been given for a project did not mean that any of the Faculty thought it was good research, but only that the student was unlikely to be killed by it. Neither had a chance to utter a word, however; the Kantrick kept talking.
“If this drill gets over with in a decent time, we can certainly help Joe make up his wind-chasers. Information can always be useful, and if it doesn’t tie into our team report it may be even more helpful—perhaps they won’t seal it the way they have the earlier student reports on the planet. It would have been nice to be able to find out more about this place when we were first doing our planning.”
“Maybe they wanted to find out who would go ahead and theorize on what little we were told.” Jenny’s raspy voice had not been heard before, but this surprised no one; she listened much more than she talked. Molly’s translator carried more than a hint of sarcasm in the rebroadcast tone, and the human being thought it was probably right, though she did not really trust this bit of programming.
If Charley detected the Rimmore’s feeling, it did not seem to affect his self-confidence. “Who’s theorizing?” he returned. “You don’t make any plans without some idea of what’s going on.”
“Including the casual assumption that we’re here because of a drill, so you didn’t see fit to make any decent speed on the way to this boat?”
“With Rimmore ideas of what’s decent speed along a set of ladders, who could?” retorted Charley. Molly decided the discussion needed an orbit shift.
“Are you really sure it’s a drill?” she asked. “Have you heard or seen anything but the order to report to the boats?”
“No, of course not,” replied the Kantrick, waving his front arm casually. Unlike the others, he had allowed himself to drift away from all support and had nothing within reach of push or grasp. “If it were a real emergency, we’d have heard plenty by this time. We…”
“Do you propose that we leave the boat, or delay any longer in manning its launch stations?” Molly was rather surprised; interrupting was decidedly unlike Joe, however justified it might seem to be.
“Oh, no—not at all.” Charley’s response was quick and emphatic. “Jenny, you were last in—get the ’all aboard’ signal out and seal the lock. The rest of us know what to do.”
Jenny, who knew equally well, said nothing; Molly would have been quite annoyed in her place. The Rimmore had been last because of Charley’s dalliance, and everyone present knew it. Neither Human nor Rimmore was really adept at reading body language or facial expression of the other, especially through environment gear, but Molly’s brown eyes tracked with Jenny’s much larger green ones for a moment, and each knew what the other was thinking. The four who were holding on were at their stations in seconds. Charley took some time to thrash his way into contact with a surface that would serve to get him moving in the right direction, but the others carefully refrained from noticing this.
Molly had time to speculate on the possible reasons for the nearly universal illogical response to incongruity called a sense of humor, and why beings who knew what laughter was and who enjoyed using it nevertheless often resented being laughed at. Even Human courtesy was enough to keep her attention strictly on her assigned instruments until the Kantrick was properly stationed. Joe and the others were equally absorbed in their own business, of course, and silence fell in the craft as its crew went through power-up and prelaunch checks.
They were able to complete these, and were in full standby status for long minutes, before any additional information came through. When it did arrive, Molly was almost annoyed to hear it support Charley’s contention, and wondered whether Joe were Human enough to have a touch of similar feeling.
The same calm voice that had ordered them to the boats sounded again in their individual receivers. “Acceleration will resume in about twenty minutes. You may power down all auxiliary craft. Shift change will phase in at the acceleration signal. The interruption occurred near the end of Shift C; Shift A will start at that time. First drop-off is anticipated at Enigma 88 in about seventy-five hours.”
Molly glanced at a clock; her translator had turned the time periods into her own units, of course, but she wanted to calculate what the dial reading would be when acceleration resumed. Twenty minutes would be slightly over half a soon in Station units, which was probably what the speaker had actually said. There would be another warning just before the actual time, but no one wanted to be away from support when that came—not even Charley; like the others, she noticed, he was checking the clock. His head, like Joe’s, was an immobile dome on his nearly spherical body, but his eyes, which were single rather than paired, were a good deal larger than the Nethneen’s and it was easy to see even from Molly’s distance that one of them was covering that part of the room.
She turned head and attention back to her board, and went through the appropriate operations. It took her only half a minute to finish, but Charley was done first.
“That was a waste of time!” he practically growled. “I was almost ready to load the last of Molly’s analyzers. Now we won’t get to it until Watch B unless she wants to do it alone, and that doesn’t seem quite fair.”
“Actually, I thought it would be better to help Joe with his equipment,” the Human woman said quietly. “There’s more of it still to be made than any of the rest of us have to worry about, and having another operator in the shop should save several hours. I thank you for saving me so much effort, Charley; but since we won’t be casting off for three of my days anyway, it seems best to be sure that we’re all set as we want to be. I know you have everything you want, Charley. How about you, Jenny?”