"Nagurski, if you are looking for a job safer than space exploration, why don't you go back to testing cosmic bomb shelters?"
Nagurski flushed. "Look here, Captain, you are being too damned cautious. There is a way one handles the survey of a planet like this, and this isn't the way."
"It's my way. You heard what Quade said. You know it yourself. The men have to have something tangible to hang onto out there. One slender cable isn't enough of an edge on sensory anarchy. If the product of their own technological civilization can keep them sane, I say let 'em take a part of that environment with them."
"In departing from standard procedure that we have learned to trust, you are risking more than a few men—you risk the whole mission in gambling so much of the ship. A captain doesn't take chances like that!"
"I never said I wouldn't take chances. But I'm not going to take stupid chances. I might be doing the wrong thing, but I can see you would be doing it wrong."
"You know nothing about space, Captain! You have to trust us."
"That's it exactly, First Officer Nagurski," I said sociably. "If you lazy, lax, complacent slobs want to do something in a particular way, I know it has to be wrong."
I turned and found Wallace, the personnel man, standing in the hatchway.
"Pardon, Captain, but would you say we also lacked initiative?"
"I would," I answered levelly.