He started toward the ridge of gray-black rock. Helen followed on his heels.
"As-pir-in," she said, deliberately falsetto, and her helmet-valet fed her another pill with a sip of water.
"Then we'll go back and stick inside the ship until the tanks are charged," Johnny went on, a little grimly. "I think we're just edgy. Planets don't give people headaches ... and there's nothing alive within in a million miles of this dustball." He hefted his blaster, which he had adjusted to Wide-Field. "But just in case...."
"Pud," Gop said, still more nervously.
"Yes, I see, you idiot! Lift the tharn-field out of their way ... I'll take care of the space-warp generator!"
The giant Vegans, for all their bulk, moved soundlessly and at great speed until they were between the aliens and the stone outcropping toward which they appeared to be heading. Gop extended a tentacle, curled it at an odd angle, and picked up the shimmering tharn-field, which was the Vegans' reservoir of Basic Universal Energy. Set in any energy matrix, tharn became that energy; added to any existing energy, tharn augmented it to any desired potential. Thus it was extremely valuable to their experiments ... and very risky stuff to handle, as well.
Gingerly, Gop set the tharn down beyond the outcropping. At the same time he picked up several instruments that lay nearby—an electron-wrench, a snurling-iron, a plotz-meter, several pencil-rays. He placed them on the ground beside the tharn.
Pud had curled twelve tentacles around the space-warp generator—it was as big as a city block, and heavy, even in light gravity. He puffed a thought at Gop: "Give me a tentacle."
Gop helped his Master place the generator safely on the other side of the ridge.