"Oh, Miss Experience? Well, three-quarters, maybe...."
"Hey, you two!" came Delcamp's hail. "How about cutting the gab and getting some work done?"
"Coming, boss! 'Scuse it, please!" and two fast and skillful women went efficiently to work.
With six Prime Operators on the job the work went on very rapidly, yet without error. The Celestial Queen was finished, tested, and found perfect, one full day ahead of James' most optimistic estimate for construction alone. The six Primes conferred.
"Do you want us to help you pick up the other Primes?" Delcamp asked. "Your Main, big as it is, will be crowded, and we have three ships here now instead of one."
"I don't think so ... no," Garlock decided. "We told 'em we'd do it, and in the Pleiades, so we'd better. Unless, Alsyne, you don't agree?"
"I agree. The point, while of course minor, is very well taken. We and our Operators—we brought six along; experts in their various fields—can serve best by working on Tellus with its Galaxian Society in getting ready for the meeting."
"Oh, of course," Fao said. "Probably Deg and I should do the same thing?"
"That would be our thought." The two Thakerns were thinking—and lepping—in fusion. "However," they went on carefully, "it must not be and is not our intent to sway you in any action or decision. While not all of you four, perhaps, are as yet fully mature, not one of you should be subjected to any additional exterior stresses."