The crowd dispersed slowly; but Brave, putting an urgent hand on Alan's arm—it enfolded his biceps and the fingertips met the thumb, for Brave's hands were as outsize as the rest of him—held him there. "Wait a minute, risaldar. I want to check something."
"Another instinct, Brave?"
"Plain horse sense. And I want to check it before the big boys clamp a top secret sign on this wreck."
He reached up and gripped the edge of the crystal bubble. It resisted him. He set his muscles and tugged with all his incredible strength. The crushed metal hinges complained and shrieked and parted, and the great bulbous sheet of plastiquartz fell to the ground, narrowly missing him as he dodged back.
"I'll boost you up, and you can give me a hand."
Inside the disk, they crouched and went through the tunnel into the control room. This comprised the entire central portion of the disk; suspended within the shell, like a small kernel in a large nut, it was held comparatively steady as the outer husk rocked and rolled and flipped in its characteristic skipped-rock flight. Alan did not understand the principle of this near-motionless suspension of the control room within an erratically weaving hull, although Don Mariner had tried to explain it to him in patient two-syllable words. It involved a knowledge of the newest developments in gyroscopics, which the young fuel expert did not comprehend. Brave had a fairly good idea of the basic laws involved, but wisely had never tried to beat it into his friend's head. Alan on fuel, on chemistry, on philosophy, was superb; Alan on dynamics or any other branch of mechanics was deplorable.
They looked around the room. Nearly all the equipment was still in its place, for the clamps that held it during the astonishing speeds the disk could maintain in flight had held it still in the shattering instant of the crash. But the entire control board, the panels of instruments and the wide mirrors that gave the pilot a view of the earth and air from every angle, had all been shoved back and broken when the saucer had struck its nose edge into the ground.
Brave walked over to the pilot's seat and stood silently surveying the mess. At last he said, "Alan."
"Yes?"