He pulled the door shut. McCauley floated lethargically to the screen unit and made an adjustment.
Nothing important apparently happened, but something ceased to happen so often. The sharp, slightly irregular clicking of the particle counter seemed to stop. It was a full five seconds before it clicked again, six before it clicked a second time, and five before it clicked a third.
"I wish," said McCauley lethargically, "that I'd been a little more on the job. Why didn't we notice the radiation count going up, Randy?"
"Bramwell complains if we touch the side of the ship because it makes noises inside his sanctum," Randy answered. "Maybe we've been trying not to think for fear the noise would disturb him."
McCauley considered the comment carefully, which was itself an indication that he was not up to par.
"No," he said slowly, "it's not that. But we don't feel right. Maybe we'd better take our temperatures. It would be ghastly if we were getting sick! Bramwell couldn't feed himself, let alone get the ship around Venus!"
With some effort he found a clinical thermometer. But they did not have any fever. In fact, their temperatures were considerably lower than the 98.6° F. which is considered the norm for men in good health.
They were two weeks and five days on their way. McCauley shook his head to clear his mind. He reread what he had just written in the ship's log, vaguely puzzled because it did not seem to make sense. With enormous effort he checked each word and found that he had left one out here and another one there. With great determination he put them in. Somewhere in his mind there was a feeling that he needed to do something very urgently, but he could not think what it was.
"Randy," he said, and something in his brain noted that his voice was plaintive, "I can't seem to think straight! There's something I ought to do! What is it?"