For one thing, the heavy man's nosebleed had stopped, and he was tenderly combing blood from his mustache with a fingertip.
For another, they had managed to stuff Tremont into a spacesuit and haul him down the shaft to the air lock. Someone had noosed the thumbs of the gauntlets together and tied the cord to the harness supporting the air tanks.
Tremont twisted his head around to eye the three of them without speaking. He was trying to decide where he had made his mistake.
Bill Braigh, the elderly youth with the crewcut? Ralph Peters, the pilot who had come with the ship? Dorothy Stauber, the trim brunette who had made the trip from Earth on the same starship as Tremont? He could not make up his mind without more to go on.
Then he remembered with a sinking sensation that all of them had been clustered about his case of papers and microfilms when he had interrupted them.
"I trust you aren't thinking of making us any trouble, Tremont," drawled Braigh. "Give up the idea; you've been no trouble at all."
"Where do you think this is getting you?" demanded Tremont.
Braigh chuckled.
"Wherever it would have gotten you," he said. "Only at less expense."
"Ask him for the combination," growled Peters.