Out of curiosity I put on the electrode-studded Hustic helmet and turned the set to receive.
Wham! Stars wheeled and comets fizzed and vague dark shapes glided and circled and balls of fire grew and exploded in showers of multicolored sparks.
I yanked the helmet off. But quick.
There's really no excuse for what I did then, except that I wasn't thinking clearly and ten days of supersonics will bring out all the petty meanness in anyone. And I thought that for once the Professor had missed the boat and the Hustic was a floperoo. It didn't bring in thoughts. Just stuff, and I wasn't going to have such a no-good gadget draining the power-packs all the way to Mars and back. I forgot that first Hustic wasn't like a radio or these new universal models the space liners all carry. That experimental set had to be adjusted to the individual brain wave pattern of the operator. But I didn't remember that.
So I disconnected one of the power leads and removed three parts. A curved metal bar, a small condenser, and the shield of one of the intricate little tubes.
I went back to sleep thinking Mike would wake me to get the parts and we could write notes back and forth to settle the matter, forgetting entirely how stubborn he could be.
It was a dirty trick, but I'm glad now I did it. It helped save Earth.
Before I was fully awake I knew something was really wrong. Mike was shaking me roughly and there was a wild gleam in his eyes. A glance showed me he'd pulled off Bill's sleep mask too.
"—— —— ——!" Mike yelled, but of course I couldn't hear him. In those Wilson-drive spaceships it was utterly impossible to talk between blast-off and landing.