"Stay there," said McBride.
"Rest a bit," advised Hammond.
"And remember next time," warned Jimmy, "that this kind of a place is no place to walk backwards. Another two hundred alphons—and that is far from impossible—and you'd have been extremely dead." He wiped his forehead with a dirty cloth, mopping the beads of nervous perspiration away.
"I suppose that would have left you without a pilot," said Sandra. Her sharp remark lacked her usual conviction, however, and she realized that it fell flat. She got out of the chair and left abruptly.
"Well, I'll be—"
"Be careful," said Larry. "She isn't worth it."
"I'm going to take the bad taste out of my mouth by calling the Lens," announced McBride.
"Go ahead," offered Pete. "We'll polish off here and by the time you're through, we'll make a stab at it!"
McBride got a through connection to Station 1, and Dr. Caldwell came to the phone.