"Never mind that for now," I said wearily. "What was your idea for getting our exploration parties through this transphasia?"
"There's only one idea for that," said Quade, ducking his long head and stepping through the connecting hatch. "With the Captain's permission...."
"Go ahead, Quade, tell him," Nagurski invited.
"There's only one way to wade through transphasia with any reliability," Quade told me. "You keep some kind of physical contact with the spaceship. Parties are strung out on guide line, like we were, but the cable has to be run back and made fast to the hull."
"How far can we run it back?"
Quade shrugged. "Miles."
"How many?"
"We have three miles of cable. As long as you can feel, taste, see, smell or hear that rope anchoring you to home, you aren't lost."
"Three miles isn't good enough. We don't have enough fuel to change sites that often. You can't use the drive in a gravitational field, you know."
"What else can we do, Captain?" Nagurski asked puzzledly.