"Base to George Easy Peter One.... Base to George Easy Peter One.... Do you hear me.... Do you hear me ... out."
A scratching whisper resolved over the interference. Harker's face wore a stunned look, but he quickly flung over a second switch and the scratching voice blared over the mother ship's entire address system. Men dropped their work throughout the great hull, and clustered around the speakers.
"George One.... Base ... hear you ... rocket crashed ... overland ... present strength ... supplies ... drop supplies."
Interference surged back and drowned the whispering voice, while through Odysseus' hull a ragged cheer grew and gathered volume. Harker shut off the address system and strained over his crackling earphones, but nothing more came in response to his radio calls.
He glanced up and found the Warning Room jammed with technicians, science section members, officers, men in laboratory smocks, or greasy overalls, or spotless Rocket Service uniforms, watching intently his own strained face as he tried to get through. Commander Chapman looked haggard, and Harker remembered that some one had once said that Chapman's young sister was the wife of the medical technician who'd gone out with Patrol Rocket One.
Harker finally pulled off the earphones reluctantly and set them on the table before him. "That's all. You heard everything they said over the P.A. system. Nothing more is coming through."
Night came, another day, night again, and they came finally to the plateau's end, and stood staring from a windy escarpment across an endless roof of rainforest far below, grey green under the continuous roof of lead-colored clouds. Hague, standing back a little, watched them. A thin line of ragged men along the rim peering mournfully out across that endless expanse for a gleam that might be the distant hull of Odysseus, the mother ship. A damp wind fluttered their rags and plastered them against gaunt bodies.
Clark and Sampler were conferring in shouts.
"Will the tank make it down this grade?" Clark wanted to know.