He wondered if there were any young pretty female colonists who ought to be spanked.
"... E Gray has just stepped off the landing ramp," the pilot out there was reporting. "He is walking toward the three colonists. Now they have started walking toward him. They do not seem hostile. They seem glad to see us. My crew and I are still at our stations, ready for ..."
Silence.
The set simply didn't register anything more except that faint sigh of uncompleted force fields in space.
"What now? What now?" the supervisor pushed the operator to one side, and barely restrained the impulse to cuff him on the side of the head. "Now what did you do? Why did you meddle with it when it was coming in so clear and strong? What's happened?"
"I didn't do anything. I didn't meddle with it. I don't know what's happened," the operator flared back. "The signal just stopped. That's all."
There was an imperative flashing of the signal light on the line that had been rigged to give direct connection of the running report to Hayes's office. The operator hesitated, then flipped open the key, as if he were touching a rattlesnake.
"What's happened down there?" Hayes complained abruptly, without diplomatic softness. "This is a very crucial point!"
"I don't know what happened. I don't know," the supervisor quarreled back. "The signal just stopped coming. We weren't doing anything to the equipment."
He looked up at the continuously changing tri-di star map which made the far wall appear to be a view into a miniature universe. "There's no reason for an occlusion," he said to Hayes. "And the set here is alive. It must be at the other end."