“Shucks,” said Kurt, “a man doesn’t have to see a little gadget like that to fix it. If your hands are trained right, you can feel what’s wrong and set it to rights right away. She won’t jump on you anymore either. The syncromesh thrust baffle was a little out of phase so I fixed that, too, while I was at it.”
Ozaki still didn’t believe it, but he hit the controls on faith. The scout bucked under the sudden strong surge of power and then, its converter humming sweetly, arced away from the giant sun in a long sweeping curve.
There was silence in the scout. The two men sat quietly, each immersed in an uneasy welter of troubled speculation.
“That was close!” said Ozaki finally. “Too close for comfort. Another hour or so and—!” He snapped his fingers.
Kurt looked puzzled. “Were we in trouble?”
“Trouble!” snorted Ozaki. “If you hadn’t fixed the converter when you did, we’d be cinders by now!”
Kurt digested the news in silence. There was something about this super-being who actually made machines work that bothered him. There was a note of bewilderment in his voice when he asked: “If we were really in danger, why didn’t you fix the converter instead of wasting time talking on that thing?” He gestured toward the space communicator.
It was Ozaki’s turn to be bewildered. “Fix it?” he said with surprise in his voice. “There aren’t a half a dozen techs on the whole base who know enough about atomics to work on a propulsion unit. When something like that goes out, you call Space Rescue and chew your nails until a wrecker can get to you.”
Kurt crawled into his bunk and lay back staring at the curved ceiling. He had thinking to do, a lot of thinking!
Three hours later, the scout flashed up alongside the great flagship and darted into a landing port. Right Officer Ozaki was stricken by a horrible thought as he gazed affectionately around his smoothly running ship.