The Indian blinked at him. Then he smiled faintly. The dark man came back, zipping up an indoor warmth-garment. Redfeather drily brought him up to date by repeating what Bordman had just said. Chuka grinned and sprawled comfortably in a chair.
"I'd say," he remarked, in that astonishingly deep-toned voice of his, "I'd say sand got in our hair. And our colony. And the landing-grid. There's a lot of sand on Xosa. Wouldn't you say that was the trouble?"
The Indian said with deliberate gravity:
"Of course wind had something to do with it."
Bordman fumed.
"I think you know," he said, "that as a Senior Colonial Survey Officer, I have authority to give any orders needed for my work. I give one now. I want to see the landing-grid, if it is still standing. I take it that it didn't fall down?"
Redfeather flushed beneath the bronze pigment of his skin. It would be hard to offend a steelman more than to suggest that his work did not still stand up.
"I assure you," he said politely, "that it did not fall down."
"Your estimate of its degree-of-completion?"
"Eighty per cent," said Redfeather.