"They looked ... well, not exactly as though they had exploded, but——" he paused.
"Precisely." Gray-Hair beamed. "That eliminates all the others except three—Morton's, Sebring's, and Rothstein's."
"You're a specialist in subspace, then?"
"Oh, no, I'm not a specialist at all. I'm a dabbler, really. A specialist, you know, is one who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing at all. I'm just the opposite. I'm learning less and less about more and more; hoping in time to know nothing at all about everything."
"In other words, a Fellow of the College. I'm glad you're aboard, sir."
"Oh, a Theoretician?" Barbara's face lit up and she held out her hand. "With dozens of doctorates in everything from Astronomy to Zoology? I've never met ... I'm ever so glad to meet you, Doctor——?"
"Adams. Andrew Adams. But I have only eight at the moment. Earned degrees, that is."
"But what were you doing in this lifecraft? No, let me guess. You were X-ray-eying it and fine-toothing it for improvements made since your last trip, and storing the details away in your eidetic memory."
"Not eidetic, by any means. Merely very good."
"And how many metric tons of apparatus have you got in the hold?" Deston asked.