They were half-way there before any hue-and-cry was raised. Each pair had gone out in a diamond-shaped course until house and spaceship were almost a ninety-degree angle apart.
Paul wondered; they were far from the house it was true, but they were almost as far from the spacecraft now as they had been when standing on the front steps of the house. His mathematical mind made a quick computation and he smiled, audibly chuckling.
"What?" said Nora in a low voice.
"I was just thinking that we are now point seven zero seven of the original distance from the spaceship."
Nora laughed gently. "Some man," she said. "Has no time to kiss me in my room, but has time to play trigonometry here."
Paul patted her gently. "Trig is something I can do without putting all I've got into it. No—"
From a distance there came the faint ringing of a bell.
"Nice man," said Nora. "I forgive you—until later."
Lights went on across the plain, men stormed out of the big building and leaped into a command-car parked on the road in front of it. The command car roared into life and started across the plain toward the dormitory.
"Now!" said Paul. "Down!"