"Omigawd!" I screamed. "Leggo! Stop it! Are you off your jets?"
"Stand back, Sparks!" warned Cooper. He raised the hammer again, again brought it down ferociously into the entrails of my beautiful transmission set. Clinkety-clatter! Something shorted; blue fire spat; there was a loud pop! and I had to clutch my breast to make sure it wasn't my heart. "Stand back!" he panted. "We—we've got to—make this—a tough—test!"
"We?" I howled.
And then he was done. He stepped back and studied his work with the pleased look of a ghoul in a graveyard.
"I think that should do the trick," he said gravely. "If he can repair this set and get it in working order, I'll give him top grade in Resourcefulness.
"Very well, now, Captain—you may return to the bridge and tell Biggs that Sparks has been suddenly overcome with illness. And you, Sparks—to your quarters. And don't forget—you're sick!"
I stared miserably at my once-perfect apparatus. I passed a hand over my brow and tottered to the doorway.
"Maybe you think," I wailed, "I'm not?"
Well, I began to feel well enough to sit up and take notice along about lunch time. Doug Enderby, the steward of our void-cavorting madhouse, brought me my grub. He tiptoed in and laid the tray on the desk before me. He whispered: