"You see? There wasn't time enough to explain it to him. It's natural for him to react with hostility."
"Put him out, and take him along," said Webber.
"No," said Paula sharply. "If he goes out right now he's liable to stay out. I won't answer for it."
"Meanwhile," said Vaillant with an edge to his voice, "the pattern is forming up. Have you any suggestions, Paula?"
She nodded. "This."
She suddenly squeezed something under Kieran's nose, a small thing that she had produced from her pocket without his noticing it, in his angry preoccupation with the two men. He smelled a sweet, refreshing odor and he struck her arm away.
"Oh, no, you're not giving me any more dopes—" Then he stopped, for suddenly it all seemed wryly humorous to him. "A bunch of bloody incompetents," he said, and laughed. "This is the one thing I would never have dreamed—that a man could sleep, and wake up in a starship, and find the starship manned by blunderers."
"Euphoric," said Paula, to the two men.
"At that," said Webber sourly, "there may be something in what he says about us."
Vaillant turned on him and said fiercely, "If that's what you think—" Then he controlled himself and said tightly, "Quarrelling's no good. We're in a box but we can maybe still put it over if we get this man to Sako. Webber, you and Paula take him in the flitter."