Then Ramsey said: “O.K. Let’s go.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“Out there. All of us.”
“But I thought you said—”
“Sure, I’m scared stiff. A normal man would be. It’s in our genes, according to your father. But I’m also a man. What the devil d’you think it was first got man out of his cave and started along the road to civilization and the stars? It was curiosity. Fear restraining him, and curiosity egging him on. Which do you think won in the end?”
“Oh, Ramsey, I could kiss you!”
“Go right ahead,” Ramsey said, and she did.
They opened the airlock. They went outside smiling.
But Vardin, who went with them, wasn’t smiling. There was sadness instead.
In cumbersome spacesuits, the five Irwadians made their way from the Dog Star to the Enterprise. Ramar Chind and his three policemen carried m.g. guns; Garr Symm was unarmed. Chind used a whorl-neutralizer to force the pattern of the lock on the outer door of the Enterprise’s airlock. Then the five of them plunged inside the ship.