"Guess so, but I feel like a ping-pong ball. How're we sittin'?"
"Just fine," Ruiz cut in. "Find anything?"
"Not yet." Mac started his search anew. Everything seemed in perfect order up to the turbine pumps. Then, he feared, the trouble was near the little motors. That was tough, really tough. With the motors retracted it was next to impossible to get to them, past their hydraulically operated booms and actuators. Extended, he'd have to go outside. He cringed from the thought, although he knew that there was little to fear if he linked himself to the ship.
He peered along the beam of light, searching for some telltale discoloration in wiring, or a gleaming icy patch which would indicate a fuel leak. "Might be the firing plugs," he muttered.
"Let's hope not. Where are you, Mac? Maybe you better give us a blow-by-blow." Logan sounded worried.
"Good idea. Right now I'm at the nine o'clock actuator. Nothing so far." He looked around himself, forgetting for the moment how he was supposed to get past the equipment to the other auxiliary motor stations.
"Johnny," he said slowly, "I think you'd best break out the tapes. Auxiliary motor system; you'll find them under power plant." Months before, MacNamara had made a complete set of tape recordings of his own voice, recorded as he made a thorough-going rundown of every system and its components. This was a personal innovation which his fellow flight engineers considered folly. Extra weight, they scoffed. Undue complication. Mac nodded and went on with his impromptu speechmaking; a professional psychiatrist might have said, correctly, that Mac felt an unconscious need for supervision, a forgivable deficiency dating back to his cadet days. Mac simply claimed that the best of men could forget or omit when alone with a few million dollars' worth of Uncle's equipment. This way he could remind himself of each step to be taken ahead of time, in his own way.