"Quite agreeable," said Ohashi. "If there is a tomorrow."
"Don't you get that way, too," she said, and she took a quavering breath. "I refuse to give up."
Ohashi bowed. He was suddenly very Oriental. "There is a primitive saying of the Ainu," he said: "The world ends every night ... and begins anew every morning."
It was a room dug far underground beneath the Ordnance Depot, originally for storage of atomics. The walls were lead. It was an oblong space: about thirty by fifteen feet, with a very low ceiling. Two trestle tables had been butted end-to-end in the center of the room to form a single long surface. A series of green-shaded lights suspended above this table gave the scene an odd resemblance to a gambling room. The effect was heightened by the set look to the shoulders of the men sitting in spring bottom chairs around the table. There were a scattering of uniforms: Air Force, Army, Marines; plus hard-faced civilians in expensive suits.
Dr. Langsmith occupied a space at the middle of one of the table's sides and directly across from the room's only door. His gnome features were locked in a frown of concentration. He puffed rhythmically at the stubby pipe like a witchman creating an oracle smoke.
A civilian across the table from Langsmith addressed a two-star general seated beside the team chief: "General Speidel, I still think this is too delicate a spot to risk a woman."
Speidel grunted. He was a thin man with a high, narrow face: an aristocratic face that radiated granite convictions and stubborn pride. There was an air about him of spring steel under tension and vibrating to a chord that dominated the room.
"Our choice is limited," said Langsmith. "Very few of our personnel have consistently taken wheeled carts into the ship and consistently taken a position close to that force barrier or whatever it is."
Speidel glanced at his wristwatch. "What's keeping them?"