"You've said that the spaceship is our only protection from transphasia. Is that it?"
Quade gave a curt nod.
"Then," I told them, "we will have to start tearing apart this ship."
Sergeant-Major Hoffman and his team were doing a good job of ripping out the side of the afterhold. Through the portal I could see the suited men expertly guiding the huge curved sections on their ray projectors.
"Cannibalizing is dangerous." Nagurski put his pipe in his teeth and shook his head disapprovingly.
"Spaceships have parts as interchangeable as Erector sets. We can take apart the tractors and put our ship back together again after we complete the survey."
"You can't assemble a jigsaw puzzle if some of the pieces are missing."
"You can't get a complete picture, but you can get a good idea of what it looks like. We can take off in a reasonable facsimile of a spaceship."
"Not," he persisted, "if too many parts are missing."