Stuart commented, "Good thing someone happened to be on duty in the turret, and we were able to take off on such short notice."
"Happened!" barked the captain. "Mr. Stuart, that's the first rule of any ship landing on territory listed as 'unsafe', and it 'happens' to be Rules Seven through Sixteen of the Patrol Regulations!"
Brettner eased the linguist's embarrassment by changing the subject a little. "Did you all see the colossal helpers they had carrying that weapon? Must be what the traders called heffalumps ... I thought the pictures were fakes. Those critters practically did the shooting themselves, and they were talking to the natives! This is some planet—everybody talks to everybody except us!"
Gordon spoke again. "White, I want you to rig up a mosaic alarm with controls in the turret, Number One Lock, and control room ... before tonight, if possible. Jury-rig it, just so it goes off when anything larger than a mossback moves near the ship. Get as much range as you can."
"That means dismantling the space-probe and comparator, boss. Not enough spare checkerboards to scan three hundred and sixty degrees with a decent vertical coverage. And for stereo-perception, so the thing can discriminate between a nearby leaf and a far-away heffalump—"
"All right, do the best you can. Can you hook it up with an infra-red snooper for night work? I don't believe the natives can see infra-red ... I hope. Procyon's a little farther toward the blue than Sol is."
"I'll see what I can do. Can't get very good resolution with the electro-optical stuff we have for infra-red. We had to weed out four tons, you know, and the Hollmann scanners are three and a half parsecs back, in our shop."
Stuart noticed that the ship's course had steadied. A look through the 'scope showed the recently-abandoned clearing now swinging under the stern again, far below. He was about to take a picture of it when Gordon called him.
"Stuart, will you go to the drive room and give Nestor a hand? He's scanning the area with microwave, and I want you to use the stern-view telescope. Those characters may have decided to go back to their base without using the tunnel; maybe we can keep out of sight and get a good fix on where they hole up."