"Then you live with the responses tossed back by my squadron. It'll be good training for you. Er—get the hell out of my way!"
The junior tech melted out of sight and went back to his control panel.
Weston came over within the hour. Ted Wilson explained the situation and told Hugh to set up and measure the coordinates with respect to the stellar centers. Then he told him to send a space scooter out to investigate that spot.
Wilson went back to his own flagship wondering whether that fancy infrawave detector would turn out to be anything. An untried doodad. But now and then—
Wearily again, Commodore Wilson called Commander Hatch, who skippered one of the scout carriers. He told Hatch to make himself available either to Hugh Weston or Maury Allison, to investigate infrawave response targets as they saw fit.
Then Wilson hit the sack to finish his off-duty.
He dozed fitfully, but he did not sleep worth a damn. He would have been better off if he could have taken the controls of one of the spacers and gone out himself. Then, at least, he would have something to fill his mind and idle hands....
Alice Hemingway awoke from a rather pleasant dream that had something to do with either ice skating or skiing, or it might have been tobogganing—the dream had faded so fast she could not be sure—to face the fact that she was feeling on the chill side.
Her blanket had slipped. She caught it around her, and in minutes felt fairly warm again. It was not so much, she thought, the actual temperature in the lifeship, but the whole damned attitude of people, and everything else that was so chilling.
The lights were running all right, and from deep below she could hear the ragged throb of the pedal generator. She wondered which of the two men was pumping it this time.