The captain nodded.
"Well," Smith continued, "there's a thirty-second of an inch clearance there. If the female had one more turn of thread, the fit would be prefect. As it is, we get no connection. So the screamer doesn't function."
Al-Amin looked at the drawing. "Odd that there's never been any complaint about this error before."
Jayjay turned another ace. "Not so odd, really."
All heads turned toward Jayjay.
"What does that mean?" Smith asked.
"Just what I said." Jayjay turned another card. "A screamer is supposed to call for help, isn't it? It's only used in a dire emergency. Then the only test of the whole unit comes when the occupants of the spaceship are in danger—as we are. If the things don't work, how could there be any complaint? If we can't get ours to work, will we complain? To whom?
"How many ships have been reported missing in the past year or so? All of them presumed lost because of meteor strikes, eh? If a ship is lost and doesn't signal, we presume that it was totally destroyed. If it wasn't, they'd have signaled. As Mister Smith says: See?"
There was a long silence.
Jayjay Kelvin turned the last card, saw that he had lost, and began shuffling the deck.