III
Lunch was over and General Hill had taken the floor.
"Gentlemen, while we're awaiting the occupants' awakening or until we decide we've waited long enough, we must learn all we can. If they awake and decide to leave, we'll at least have obtained specific knowledge of how one spaceship works!
"We've only a vague suspicion of how the propulsion mechanism operates. But fortunately we've found equipment very similar to ours. Simpler in some respects. Probably worked from transistors instead of to them.
"The electronics men may have a free hand except for the bulkhead instrument. We'd better not tinker there until we're reasonably sure we know what we're doing. It may spell life or death to the crew. Some may prefer to study the books which we found," he added thoughtfully. "If so, speak up!"
"I would," Winthrop cut in. "I'd like Rabin and Norris to join me."
"An electronics engineer should round out the group," General Hill said. "Okay, Lizio. Now, gentlemen, shall we go?"
Rabin was a practicing psychologist with a strong background in semantics, linguistics, astronomy and a half-dozen other curiously diversified sciences. Yet, as Winthrop looked at him again, there was doubt—not as to Rabin's capability, but as to his dependability?
Was it some sense of inward nervousness, something contained in himself which he could not tolerate in others?
Rabin was studying the horribly graphic pictures as though each were a major work of art. Winthrop saw in the man's dark eyes something that had been in the little girl's eyes. He looked away.