And this time it was a full smile he turned upon the suddenly embarrassed Lark O'Day. Gary Lane chuckled too. It appeared that the supposedly "impassive" Martian did not lack, among other things, a delightful sense of humor....
CHAPTER IX
Speed Limit—186,000 MPS!
Thus it was arranged. Dr. Kang Tsao and his daughter, beautiful Kang Pen-N'hi, moved kit and equipment aboard the Liberty that very day. The events of the following week were days not so filled with adventure as with plain hard and dogged work.
At Dr. Kang's own suggestion the Liberty did not linger on Deimos until the installation of the new power shield should be complete.
"This discovery," said the Martian scientist, "is remarkably simple. With what little equipment my daughter and I have brought aboard, and with such standard stores as may be found aboard your ship, we can make the craft impregnable. So let us waste no time, but get under way. We shall make the installation as we fly to Jupiter."
And this they did, in plain sight of all the Liberty's staff and crew. Despite which, few were able afterward to say what had been done, or why such minor alterations should make such a tremendous difference.
Old Douglas Sebold, Chief Engineer of the Liberty, openly acknowledged his inability to grasp the force field's method of operation.
"Come down here to the engine room, they did; the Martian man and his daughter. Fidgeted and fiddled around for a couple of hours without speaking nary a word to any of us except maybe a polite, 'Howjyedo? G'bye!' And when they left, what had they did? Hooked up a little hunk of wire here and a condenser there and a thingamajigger somewhere else, none of which looks like it ought to do nothing!"
Lieutenant MacDonald made much the same plaint.