Auxiliary fuels, came from Melvin thinking. They're in the auxiliary fuel-chamber now. Hot steam in the turbines, pushed right through the heat exchanger. The atomic charge won't go of at all if the heat exchanger works fast enough.
They don't know as much about the rocket as Pop does, came from Melvin. The atomic part is the big important part. They came at night and studied that. But the heat exchanger—they didn't take the trouble to study it. Now they're worried about it. Why should an atomic rocket have auxiliary fuels?
Daddy could have told them. You had to have auxiliary fuels in a rocket if you were going to send it to the moon. The rocket's trajectory would have to be modified by small readjustments that could only be made by auxiliary fuels.
Melvin, think hard! Think hard and fast, and in the right way!
They're stopping now to puzzle it out, came from Melvin. Their minds work differently from ours. They fasten on the big important things first. The small things they sometimes overlook. They can't help it. Their minds are constructed that way.
Mustn't let trivialities distract us. That's what they were thinking. That's what they were thinking, and they were going to make a mistake.
They're going to move the wrong dial. I'm going to help them move the wrong dial. I want them to move the wrong dial. They must move the wrong dial....
It began with a faint humming sound—nothing more. But something that couldn't have come from Melvin at all showered Mary Anne's mind with thoughts and emotions that were like a screaming inside her head.
A continuous terrified screaming that made her want to slap her hands to her ears to shut out the sound.
The screaming stopped the instant the rocket began to vibrate. It stopped as abruptly as a jet of steam issuing from a suddenly clogged pipe.