So a couple of days skidded by, as days have a habit of doing. About the middle of the second day, Hanson came up to my turret looking as confused as a stork at the Old Maids' Home. He said, "Sparks, I been hearin' funny things—"
"Your digestion?" I asked. "Or have you been dosing your asthma with that 90-proof cough-medicine again? That'll make you hear things and see 'em too—"
"That's enough," interrupted the Old Man coldly, "of them kind o' comments! What I been hearin' is bad. They's a rumor floatin' around that we're on a dead trajectory for Sol due to Major Gilchrist's course plottin'."
"Oh, that?" I said. "Forget it, skipper. Mr. Biggs knows all about it. He's got ideas."
"Well," said the skipper, relieved, "in that case, I guess everything's O.Q." And he waddled happily away. Which gives you some idea who's the real Master Mind on the Saturn.
That very same night, Diane Biggs stopped me outside the Officers' Mess.
"Sparks, have you seen Lancelot anywhere? I haven't laid eyes on him all day, and I'm worried."
"You ought to know better than to fret wrinkles into your pretty brow over that one-man quiz program," I told her. "He's O.Q. Right now he's engaged in some mysterious project of his own devising. When last seen he was swiping generator supplies from the storeroom. Don't ask me why, because maybe I know the right answer, and I don't want to have to tell."
"He—he's not going to get in any trouble, is he?"