Knowledge of the ship's apparent point of origin kindled a deeper fire—the necessity to find out what they could while they could. Even if the ship's occupants proved friendly they just might be firmly reticent.
The computers came, and an intense Benton Allan and his associates—a young man who immediately buried his thin, bespectacled nose in the math, and bent his thin frame to the instruments.
The ship swarmed with technicians. Engineers examined the gyros and swore without hesitation that they could be duplicated. Others studied the electronics computer tied into the bulkhead instrument and its related schematics, or huddled excitedly with astronomers and spatiologists.
One by one they tied the schematics and drawings to the instruments and equipment, at length realizing that nothing in the volume related to the ship forward of the bulkhead.
They'd been talking it over.
"If you were in a spaceship," Winthrop said, "you'd certainly keep on hand the mechanics of what keeps your living quarters livable. There'll be another book up forward."
They left it at that.
Winthrop realized that with men here to whom math was sustenance, the sought-after answers might well be attained more quickly if he did not try to help further. As he went out, his gaze swept Rabin. The man's face was still drawn and pale in silent, fascinated study of the picture book.
The ship again. In the bright sunlight Winthrop asked questions while study of the stern went on apace. The bow retained its mystery. The many electronic listening devices attached forward had not recorded one decibel of sound.
In his mind the thought raced again: Was there something lurking in the bow—something the little girl and Rabin had sensed—some unspeakable horror from the stars?