But by the beginning of the rest period seven hours later, Earth was still silent.
No one slept that night. Matt Magoffin tried, but at length he gave up and switched on the lights in his cabin. He drew on comfortable gray coveralls, which made him look even stockier than he was, and departed for the messroom.
Counting the crew, there were thirty-one members of the expedition—nine women and twenty-two men. Everyone of them, Matt realized, must be present. The tension was so apparent that he could feel a thrill of nervousness.
"No word, I suppose?" he asked, dropping into a vacant seat beside Lynn.
"No," the girl shook her head, setting her shoulder-length, yellow hair to swinging. There was generally a half-wicked, half-mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, but it was lacking tonight. Little frown lines creased her low broad forehead. "You don't suppose the plague has anything to do with it, do you Matt?"
"Plague? How could the plague affect broadcasting?"
"I don't know." She shrugged helplessly. "Let's go up to the observation deck. This waiting is driving me off my beam."
"Sure."
Matt followed her into the passage. She was wearing coveralls like his own, but of a trimmer cut. She was unquestionably the prettiest of the nine women, he reflected. And hard as nails.
Two years on the treacherous Martian deserts had enabled Matt to arrive at a pretty accurate estimate of everyone by the way they reacted to danger, to the disappointment at failing to discover evidence of life, to their cramped quarters.