"I'll take your word for it. I haven't your affinity for blueprints, you know, or your eidetic memory for them."
"Do you want me to give him the whole works?"
"We'll have to, I think. Or the ship might not work at all."
"Could be—but how about intergalactic hops?"
"He couldn't do it with the Pleiades, so he won't be able to with this. Besides, if we change it in any particular he might. You see, I don't know very much more about Unit Eight than you do."
"That could be, too." Then, as though just emerging from his concentration on the drawings, James thought at Delcamp and Fao, but on the open, general band.
"A good many errors and a lot of blanks, but in general you're on the right track. I can finish up this drawing in a couple of hours, and we can build the unit in a couple of days. With that in place, the rest of the ship will go fast.
"If Miss Talaho wants me to," he concluded, pointedly.
"Oh, I do, Jim—really I do!" At long last, stiff-backed Fao softened and bent. She seized both his hands. "If you can, it'd be too wonderful for words!"
"Okay. One question. Why are you building your ship so small?"