"Much better not to," said the Captain. "It's being done efficiently enough from outside."
"You are convinced it's being done from outside?" asked Hoskins, peering at him owlishly.
"I'm ... convinced of very little," said the Captain heavily. He went to the acceleration couch and sat down. "I want out," he said. He waved away the professional comment he could see forming on Paresi's lips and went on, "Not claustrophobia, Nick. Getting out of the ship's more important than just relieving our feelings. If the trouble with the port is being caused by some fantastic something outside this ship, we'll achieve a powerful victory over it, purely by ignoring it."
"It broke off," murmured Johnny.
"Ignore that," snorted Ives.
"You keep talking about this thing being caused by something outside," said Paresi. His tone was almost complaining.
"Got a better hypothesis?" asked Hoskins.
"Hoskins," said the Captain, "isn't there some way we can get out? What about the tubes?"
"Take a shipyard to move those power-plants," said Hoskins, "and even if it could be done, those radioactive tubes would fry you before you crawled a third of the way."