"Your transmission power supply, captain—"
"The power-pack, sir?" Inadvertantly, the officer glanced at the unit and Doug followed the glance. Smaller, more compact than the best he'd seen in his own time, yet obviously evolved on identical principles. But now he had to carry the farce out, had to wring some of the freshman stuff from his memory.
"Sergeant—" He gestured toward the unit as he removed his gauntlets. "What is the v—Kempage on the plates of the final amplifier?"
"Eleven hundred Kemps at 300 milliamperes, sir."
"Very well. Suppose you give me the final power supply nomenclature!"
"Yes, sir. Genemotor, type A-26-F modified. Two hundred fifty Kemp input, eleven hundred Kemp output, at three hundred milliamperes. Two filter condensers, type L-73 new departure, one filter choke, L-12, one bleeder resistor—"
"That's enough, sergeant. Captain, upon perfunctory inspection at least, your communications unit seems to be in excellent condition. However, I suggest that after this you commit each successive overhaul date to memory."
"Yes, sir."
So far, so good, Doug thought. Yet it was a thing of mocking irony. He was actually perfecting the act so well that one day the risk of impersonation would vanish entirely—yet now, now he must use it to its utmost to carry through a desperate plan to escape, rather than to stay. Worse, it was even a double irony, for had he sought escape at first rather than a lifetime of imposture in this next-door world, they would have helped him. Of course there were the games—he might never have learned enough in so short a time to have gone undetected through them. It was a strangely reassuring thought; it eliminated choice. But at the same time it heightened his desperation. There was only one mark at which to aim, but it was a bull's-eye with no margin for error.