"Skip that exercise, Grant, and glide in," Bridget sent. "Feel up to it, now?"
"Yeah, but what's it all about? I must've passed out, but damned if I know what for."
Grant heard Bridget's laugh and his morale improved. "You come down and take me to dinner and I'll give you the answer—and what I think may be the answer to all the general's troubles. Right now I've got a report to write so the general can get the word soon—and as painlessly as possible."
Grant pressed the stud to activate the skin coolant system for entrance into the atmosphere. He almost felt like grinning.
Grant at the medical officer's advice took a brief nap, which quickly cleared up his mental fuzziness. As a surprise to Bridget he ordered a rotocab from Barstow, the nearest town, booming since the base had become operative.
In a specialty restaurant over freshly arrived seafood from San Francisco, Grant tried to persuade Bridget to stop teasing him about the navigational foul-up and set him straight. He had put up with it as long as he did only because she had worn an off-shoulder yellow gown, snugly fitted, that made the uniform seem like the design of a Mid-Victorian prude.
Grant, exasperated, brought her teasing up short. "I've been priding myself on keeping up the myth I'm a wide-awake young man and pilot. Never have I passed out before—never. I feel like a washed-out cadet. You've had your fun baiting—now, what made me blank?"
Bridget cringed as he tore a slice of French bread in half with one hostile, meaningful bite.
She waved her cigarette haughtily. "We in psychology have found certain stimuli productive of consistent human response. Especially true in tactile sensation, this, however, is not as true in the auditory and visual."