"Ventriloquism?" Vivian said with a half-hearted grin.
"Wouldn't fool McGuire for an instant," Felder said. "That's an audio-visual trick of the human mind, not of a robot's."
The ship kept on moving. McGuire went serenely on, following his last orders.
We finally reached the point where we were too tired to think, and sleep became imperative. We were nearly two days out of Ceres.
When I announced my intention of taking a snooze, Felder looked at me through groggy, bloodshot eyes. "Hadn't we better sleep in two shifts? I mean, just in case there's another spy among us?"
I shook my head. "No spy would try anything now. There isn't anything to try. We're all safe, as far as that's concerned. I'll go in and sleep in my assigned room. Not even Brentwood could or would do anything to me now."
"For that matter," Felder said, "it's senseless to keep him locked up now. He's harmless until we reestablish control over McGuire. When that happens, we can lock him up again."
"My sentiments exactly," I said in my new hoarse, breathy, susurrant voice.
Brentwood didn't say much when I gave him the news; he just thanked me. I got into bed and worried for a while, but lack of sleep soon cut off my ability to worry. I only woke up once in the next nine hours, when McGuire changed course a trifle to avoid some unseen meteor. Not even the ache in my throat kept me from sleep.