"All right," he said to the Neranians. "I'll go back and try the super-cee from the engine room. If it works all right, you cut it out after a couple of minutes, and we'll work on it from up here. You have to cut it off, remember. Once it's on, we can't get into it from down there because of the field buildup."
The creatures gave the Neranian equivalent of a nod. Joe ducked and clumped his way through the low, narrow passages to the far rear of the ship.
"There is nothing wrong with this ship," said Litchfield. "We've gone over every item of the super-cee."
"Well, we'll soon know. Get behind the shield." Joe stepped up to the intricate panel. The manipulations were extremely involved and required great exactness to keep the ship from vanishing in very small particles of stardust when the faster-than-light drive came on. Finally, it was done, and he squeezed a pair of handles, the Neranian equivalent of a relay push button. Instantly, a copper haze surrounded the mass of equipment beyond the panels, and the meter needles swung over.
"See?" said Litchfield. "Nothing wrong with it."
Joe watched the panels in silence. The engineer was right. There was no question about it. But why had the Neranians come to him with a perfectly good ship and asked for repairs?
"Let's go back and have a talk with our friends," he said. There's just the bare possibility that there's trouble in the relays and these birds didn't have sense enough to try the engine room manuals before yelling for help."
The four of them left the engine room, swinging the automatic bulkhead door behind them. The next chamber through which they passed was a mechanical storage room.
Joe pushed on and shoved against the next bulkhead door. He shoved again, then leaned on it hard and swore. "What goes on?"
Suddenly, Litchfield went to the barrier behind them and pushed. It was locked. The engineer matched Joe's swearing and looked at his boss.