Braun stared up at him in a new fashion. Now he was neither dogged nor fierce nor desperate to look at. Despite the beating he’d taken, he seemed completely and somehow frighteningly tranquil. He looked like somebody who has come to the end of torment and is past any feeling but that of relief from suffering.
“You—” said Braun. “That girl you were with today. Her pop is Major Holt, eh?”
Joe frowned, and reservedly said that he was.
“You tell her pop,” said Braun detachedly, “this is hot tip. Hot tip. Look two kilometers north of Shed tomorrow. He find something bad. Hot! You tell him. Two kilometers.”
“Y-yes,” said Joe, his frown increasing. “But look here——”
“Be sure say hot,” repeated Braun.
Rather incredibly, he smiled. Then he turned and walked quickly away.
Joe went back to his seat in the empty bus, and sat there and waited for it to start, and tried to figure out what the message meant. Since it was for Major Holt, it had something to do with security. And security meant defense against sabotage. And “hot” might mean merely significant, or—in these days—it might mean something else. In fact, it might mean something to make your hair stand on end when thought of in connection with the Space Platform.
Joe waited for the bus to take off. He became convinced that Braun’s use of the word “hot” did not mean merely “significant.” The other meaning was what he had in mind.