"We may as well make the picture complete. Once in the ship she felt tired. She found a comfortable cabin and fell asleep. She can't hear anything so our little skirmish with the geepees didn't bother her."
"I can't argue with you. It'll do until a better explanation comes along."
"But I wish she'd waited a few minutes to take her nap. She'd have saved us a lot of trouble. She didn't know you'd be able to crawl through the tubes—and neither did you until you'd actually done it."
"What do you want?" said Docchi. "She did more than we did. We depend too much on her. Next thing we'll expect her to escort us personally to the stars."
"I wasn't criticizing her," protested Jordan.
"Maybe not. You've got to remember her mind works differently. It never occurred to her that we'd have difficulty with something that was so simple to her. At the same time she's completely unable to grasp our concepts." He straightened up. "We'd better get going if we don't want Anti to start yelling."
The cargo hold was sizable. It had to be to hold the tank, which was now quite battered and twisted. But the tank was sturdily built and looked as if it would hold together for ages to come. There was some doubt as to whether the ship would. The wall opposite the ramp was badly bent where the tank had plowed into it and the storage racks were demolished. Odds and ends of equipment lay in scattered heaps on the floor.
"Anti," called Docchi.
"Here."
"Are you hurt?"