"The grasshopper? No. A little stunned, maybe. But perfectly well."
I went back to the plates and started another quartz grain. John, Lee and Burns sat and gabbled to each other.
"If the crystal lattice was expanded to start with...."
"Relative to its size, the crystal would be full of breathing holes...."
"You could take in nutrient through a lattice as big as that. It would be relatively porous...."
"... molecular pressure...."
"... shift that battery and move the galvanometer...."
"... take out most of the instruments and fake up the records from the previous trip...."
"If we weren't being expelled this evening," said John.
They looked at me.