The coldly ironical tones did more to restore the shaking man's equilibrium than reams of remonstrance could have done. "Well, yes, that was about the size of it, sir," he admitted.
"And does that sound reasonable to you, the commander of a first-class battleship of Boskone's fleet?" sneered Helmuth.
"Well, sir, put in that way, it does seem a bit far-fetched," the captain replied, sheepishly.
"It is far-fetched." The director, in the safety of his dome, could afford to be positive. "We do not know exactly what caused that hallucination, apparition, or whatever it was. You were the only one who could see it, apparently; it certainly was not visible on our master plates here at base. It was probably some form of suggestion or hypnotism; and you know as well as we do that any suggestion can be thrown off by a definitely opposed will. But you did not oppose it, did you?"
"No, sir, I didn't have time."
"Nor did you have your screens out, nor automatic recorders on the trip. Not much of anything, in fact. I think that you had better report back here, at full blast."
"Oh, no, sir—please!" He knew what rewards were granted to failures, and Helmuth's carefully chosen words had already produced the effect desired by their speaker. "They took me by surprise then, but I'll go through this next time."
"Very well. We will give you one more chance. When you get close to the barrier, or whatever it is, go inert and put out all your screens. Man your plates and weapons, for whatever can hypnotize can be killed. Go ahead at full blast, with all the acceleration you can get. Crash through anything that opposes you, and beam anything that you can detect or see. Can you think of anything else?"
"That should be sufficient, sir." The captain's equanimity was completely restored, now that the warlike preparations were making more and more nebulous the sudden, but single, thought wave of the Arisian.
"Proceed!"