"I'm all right," Clarey interrupted. "But what are we going to do?"
Blynn laughed without stopping for a full minute. "Do? I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to sit tight and wait for the staff ship."
Two months later the staff ship came. Blynn radioed for the general and the secretary to come in a closed ground car.
"But why?" the general's voice crackled plaintively over the com-unit. "I thought we didn't want them to know about ground cars—"
"They know," Blynn said crisply. "They've got one of their own now, maybe more. Crazy-looking thing, but it works. You'll see it outside Headquarters when you get here. The letters on the side mean 'Earthmen, Go!' Form imperative impolite emphatic."
Han Vollard strode into Headquarters, eyes ablaze. "Why didn't you send a report before trouble started? How could you allow an emergency situation to happen?"
Neither Blynn nor Clarey said anything.
"Very distressing thing," Spano declared. "Maybe it hit them so suddenly they didn't know it was building."
"You and Blynn get over to the ship right away for deep-probing," Han Vollard ordered, as both began to speak at once. "It's the only way I'll be able to get a coherent report."
After the results came through, her anger was cold, searing, unwomanly. "You knew a year ago that things were beginning to go wrong and you didn't even mention it on the tapes! I could have both of you broken for this."