"I don't mean to get personal," she said. "But you seem to have changed a great deal quite suddenly. You're colder, as if you had lost your sense of humor somehow."
Chandler met Marta's gaze. "In a way, I suppose I did."
"Paul," she started to say, but Professor Kotenko strode down the aisle and plopped into the seat on the other side of Chandler.
"I'm afraid these were the best cigars they had in the lounge," he said, holding one out for Chandler.
"They'll do," Chandler said.
The two men lit up. Kotenko, through a haze of blue smoke, started picking at Chandler's brain like a surgeon undertaking an exploratory operation.
"Now then, my dear Dr. Chandler, what will this magic drill be?"
"I was thinking of super-dense metals from Pluto and, maybe later, from the depths of the Earth itself."
"You are thinking in terms of conventional drilling?"
"I have been, yes."