If the commander had succeeded in quickly putting out the fire he rated a medal, he was a man for all of that.
And apparently the commander had succeeded in putting out the fire, or he would not now be facing Corriston with a grimly urgent look on his mask.
Helen Ramsey was staring at him almost as if she were seeing him as he really was for the first time. Did she know that he was wearing a mask? There was no possible way she could know, he told himself, except by intuition. The masks were good. Having worn one herself she ought to know how good they were. She ought not even to suspect the commander unless—
Corriston had no time to finish the thought.
"Get up, both of you," the commander said, gesturing with his braided right arm. "The Mars ship has just berthed. We've got to go aboard before there's any question as to the obedience of the crew. The captain has been taken off, but we're keeping some of the crew."
"You—you put out the fire, Commander?"
"Naturally. I'm not quite the incompetent you think me, Lieutenant."
"I'm quite sure of that, Commander," Corriston said. "Do we take anything with us?"
"You'll get all the extras you need on Mars," the commander said. "Stephen Ramsey isn't likely to want to see his daughter go about in rags."
Corriston decided that the wisest thing he could do was to take the commander at his word in every important respect; for the moment, at any rate. There was the little matter of a killer still at large somewhere on the Station, and the quicker they were in space the safer Ramsey's daughter would be. Not just in space as the Station was in space, but much further out in the Big Dark.