"You can't shoot all your energy at once," he pointed out, when Banning protested he didn't need the sleep. "If we're going to get Harkins out of that ship, we're going to have to stay in pretty good shape ourselves."
"All right," Banning grumbled. He made coffee on the hot plate from the bottom drawer of his desk, grinning at Colin like a small boy caught stealing cookies. "I like a little coffee once in a while," he explained unnecessarily.
When they had settled themselves with the coffee, Banning asked, "All right, now. Why'd you change 'come in please' to 'please reply'?"
"It's less ambiguous," Colin said. "'Come in please' could mean several things."
"So? Anybody with as much radio experience as Harkins knows what 'Come in please' means."
"You're going to have to get used to the idea you're not dealing with Harkins in this. Take the point of view, this is somebody you've never seen before. Somebody you have to figure out from scratch."
"Mm. I suppose so. Okay, why the change?"
"Well—" Colin hesitated. "First of all, this—blindness is purely a functional block of some kind. There's nothing organically wrong with his vision."
"I'm still not sure I go along with your blind-deaf idea," the General said dubiously.
"I'm virtually certain, after seeing the film strip again. Your Colonel Harkins behaves exactly like a man being molested by something he can't see."