"Right. By-o."
De Hooch and Willows walked back to the control room of Number Two Reactor in silence.
Once inside the control room, de Hooch said: "How are those control circuits?" Willows was supposed to have been checking them while he had been dragging Ferguson and Metty out of the antechamber.
"Well, I ... I'm not sure. I'll show you what I've found so far, Guz. You ought to take a look at them. I ... I'd like you to take a look-see. I think"—he gestured toward the console—"I think they're all right except for the freezer vernier and the pressure release control."
He doesn't trust his own work, de Hooch thought. Well, that's all right. Neither do I.
Painstakingly, the two of them went over the checking circuits. Willows was right. The freezer and pressure controls were inoperable.
"Damn," said de Hooch. "Double damn."
"They're probably both stuck at the firewall," Willows said.
"Sure. Where else? I'll have to go in there and unstick 'em. Help me get back into that two-legged tank again." He wished he knew more about what Ferguson and Metty had been doing. He wished he knew why the two men had gone into the anteroom in the first place. He wished a lot of things, but wishing was a useless pastime at this stage of the game.
If only one of the two men had been in a condition to talk!