"Why?"
"If we scorched their tails any, there'll be embarrassing questions asked."
"So—?"
"So nothing until we're asked. Even then you know nothing."
In the Relay Girl, Channing mopped his forehead. "That was hell itself," he said.
Arden laughed uncertainly. "I thought that it would wait until we got there; I didn't expect hell to come after us."
"What—exactly—happened?" asked Walt, coming into the scanning room.
"That—was a spaceship."
"One of this system's?"