“Could we sneak a televisor down on the next test, so we could see what goes on?”
“I don’t see how we could conceal it — any signal we can receive down here can be picked up as well or better in the observatory. I suppose we might say that you had an idea in that line too, and we were testing it out.”
“We could — only perhaps it would be better to separate ideas a little. It wouldn’t help if Drai began to think you were a fool. People too often connect fools and knaves in figures of speech, and it would be a pity to have him thinking along those lines.”
“Thanks — I was hoping you’d keep that point in mind. It doesn’t matter much anyway — I don’t see why we can’t take the Karella out near Three and make the tests from there. That would take only a matter of minutes, and you could make the dive right away if things went well. I know it will be several days before the ship will be wanted — more likely several weeks. They get eight or ten loads of tofacco from the planet during the ‘season’ and several days elapse between each load. Since all the trading is done by torpedo, Lee has a nice idle time of it.”
“That will be better. I still don’t much like free fall, but a few hours of that will certainly be better than days of waiting. Go ahead and put it up to Drai. One other thing — let’s bring more than one suit this time. I was a little worried for a while, there, out on Four.”
“A good point. I’ll check three suits, and then call Drai.” Conversation lapsed, and for the next few hours a remarkable amount of constructive work was accomplished. The three units of armor received an honest preservice check this time, and Feth was no slacker. Pumps, valves, tanks, joints, heating coils — everything was tested, separately and in all combinations.
“A real outfit would spray them with liquid mercury as a final trick,” Feth said as he stepped back from the last suit, “but we don’t have it, ana we don’t have any place to try it, and it wouldn’t check as cold as these are going to have to take anyway. I’ll see what Drai has to say about using the ship — we certainly can’t run three torpedoes at once, and I’d like to be sure all these suits are serviceable before any one of them is worn on Three.” He was putting away his tools as he spoke. That accomplished, he half turned toward the communicator, then appeared to think better of it.
“I’ll talk to him in person. Drai’s a funny chap,” he said, and left the shop.
He was back in a very few minutes, grinning.
“We can go,” he said. “He was very particular about the plural. You haven’t been through a period of tofacco-need yet, and he is afraid you’d get funny ideas alone. He is sure that I’ll have you back here in time for my next dose. He didn’t say all this, you understand, but it wasn’t hard to tell what he had in mind.”