As they walked along a curved corridor, she saw with some surprise that twice Mr. Andrews had lagged back a bit, then had come forward behind them to walk by her side instead of on the far side of Jock Norton. And both times Norton had quietly lagged back to circle her and step forward between them, explaining quietly that Mr. Andrews could hear his explanation better if he, Norton, walked between.
Alice was still wondering whether Charles Andrews actually held any off-trail notions about his traveling secretary when all hell broke loose.
First came the wild clangor of an alarm, and the automatic cry of a recorded order:
"Your undivided attention, please! This is urgent! You have eleven minutes from the end of this announcement to follow these directions. There has been a partial failure of the warp-generator. If this failure becomes complete, and the space field collapses, the effect will be that of precipitating intrinsic mass into the real Universe while traveling at some high multiple of the velocity of light. The spacecraft then will drop instantly below the speed of light but in doing so will radiate all the energy-mass equivalent to those multi-light speeds, according to the Einstein equation of mass and energy. It is therefore expedient that you repair to the lifeship locks and prepare to debark. The partial failure may or may not continue. If not, there will be no more danger. But in case of continued breakdown—"
The recorded announcement stopped abruptly as a louder alarm bell rang briefly. Then another voice from the squawk-box shouted:
"The warp-generator is failing! You have—"
A third voice came in automatically saying, "Eleven minutes," after which the second voice continued neatly, "to make your way to a lifeship and debark. Please do not panic. You have plenty of time."
"It's this way," Norton said anxiously.
"We'll find it," said Andrews. "I know this spacecraft type. Hadn't you better take care of your other passengers?"
Norton wanted to swear. It would have been so neat if Andrews hadn't insisted upon coming along on this tourist's run of the spacecraft. As it was, Norton couldn't quite bring himself to suggest that Andrews take care of the other customers while Norton himself took care of the girl. On the other hand, Norton had no intention of rushing off to take care of the others when they were probably being taken care of right now by the engineer-technician. He said that, and repeated it to give it force.