Nothing.
But he felt the headache coming on again.
He went down to the galley again, and took the soup bowl with him. He put it in the washer, and rummaged around in the cabinets until he found the little white pills that helped his headaches. He took three of them before he went back up to the control room.
He had to make some kind of plans for—for what? Escape? He didn't want to escape. He was home. He wanted to stay here. But he had to deal with the—things, somehow. He wondered if they could be killed. There was no way to tell. If you killed one you couldn't see its body.
And he didn't have any weapons, at any rate. He would simply have to outsmart them. He wondered how smart they were. And how large. That would make a good deal of difference, how large they were.
He went to the viewport and cracked the shutter, just a little. It was dark. He didn't want to go out in the dark, that was too much. It would be too much risk. He would wait until morning.
In spite of the pills, the headache was getting worse, almost to the insane level it had been in the afternoon. He decided he'd better try to sleep.
3.
Colin and General Banning stood at the shoulder of the radio operator in Gila Base IV Central Control. It was just past midnight. Banning's fatigue was evident; Colin, having been involved a shorter time, still looked reasonably fresh.
Monotonously the radio tech droned: "Gila Control to Phoenix I come in please. Gila Control to Phoenix I come in please. Gila Control to Phoenix I come in please." After every third repetition of the chant, he switched to Receive and briefly listened to the buzz and crackle from the overhead speakers.