Jacobs ran his finger down a chart and discovered to his surprise that the Astra had only two hundred hours on its log since the last overhaul. Ordinarily a ship was checked each thousand hours. He scratched his head but decided that if Operations wanted the Astra tuned it was none of his business. So he told Gomez not to ask useless questions and to get back in the tube.
Anyone else but Gomez would have obeyed orders and forgotten all about it. Ten minutes later Jacobs saw Armando’s head appear.
“Amigo!” Gomez shouted. “How many hours?”
“Two hundred!” Jacobs shouted back, knowing he would have no peace until Gomez was answered. “Now get to work! We ain’t got all year.”
But Gomez was out of the tube again in five minutes and yelling for the foreman.
“What do you want now?” Jacobs demanded. He swung himself up on the catwalk beside Gomez.
“Something very funny in here, amigo,” Gomez replied. “One plate she is too clean.”
“Less work for you,” Jacobs grunted. “So why complain?”
Nevertheless he took a look at the plate, which was near the mouth of the tube. It should have been lightly encrusted with the oxides of rocket fuel. Instead, it was only beginning to dull, in strange contrast to its neighbors which were welded to it.
“That is queer,” Jacobs muttered.