Something, some sort of an idea, had been sitting quietly at the bottom of my mind, just barely discernible through the semipermeable barrier that separates the conscious from the subconscious, but I couldn't fish it out.
When I managed to grasp part of it, I said: "Look. The trouble is that McGuire is incapable of connecting my present voice with the voice he's used to. Then it seems to me that our job is to supply him with the missing steps."
"How?" asked Felder.
"One of you—or all of you, if it took that to convince him—could fake a hoarse, whispery voice. You could slowly make your voice worse and worse, so that he could see the steps involved."
Vivian brightened, but Felder and Videnski shook their heads together like the Bobbsey Twins sorrowing over a lost pet.
"What we may do voluntarily," said Felder, "over a relatively long period of time, has nothing to do with what happened to you suddenly and involuntarily. You see, in the long run, he really doesn't care about our voices. He doesn't pay any attention to us, really, except as incidental cargo. He has no concept of intelligence, actually; he can't accept any statements of ours unless they're verifiable by McGuire himself."
"Well, we could at least try it," said Vivian.
We did, and Felder was right. McGuire seemed almost condescending in his sorrow for our inability to see that there was no logical connection between their whispers and the voice of his Lord and Master, Daniel Oak.
Vivian, who had been standing near Videnski while we were talking to McGuire, suddenly blew up when McGuire assured us that our whispering was a waste of time. She grasped her book—"Some Applications of Discontinuity in Pattern Theory"—and threw it at the wall speaker from which McGuire's voice came. It bounced harmless off the protective grill and fell to the floor. Vivian Devereaux burst into tears.
I put my arm around her, gave Videnski and Felder the high sign to keep thinking, and led her to her room. As soon as I got her settled, I said: "Relax. No matter what happens, we'll get out of it alive. If we stretch our rations, we'll be able to make it to Titan without being more than underweight and hungry."