But that pleading note!
It reminded her suddenly — with a little mounting lump in her throat — of her bird dog, a magnificent mahogany-and-white Chesapeake retriever, dead these thousand years. Somehow she felt again as she used to feel when the dog had looked up at her after placing a recovered bird at her feet.
He was gone now, gone with all the world she'd known. Her ideas and her memories were magnificent antiques, museum pieces, in this newer day. But she felt that if, somehow, that dog could have been granted eternal life, he'd be searching for her still… searching, waiting, hungering for the return that never came. And rising in queerly mixed ecstasies of gladness and shyness if she ever came back to him again.
Kingsley spoke and the rising feeling snapped.
"Gravity suits," said Kingsley, almost bursting with excitement. "But even more than that! Suits that will let a man move about comfortably under any sort of conditions. Under any pressure, any gravity, in any kind of atmosphere.”
"With these," Gary suggested, "we would be able to explore Jupiter.”
"Sure," said Tommy, "that would be easy. Except for one little thing. Find a fuel that will take you there and take you out again.”
"Hell," enthused Herb, "I bet the Engineers could tell us how to make that fuel. These boys are bell-ringers all around.”
"If there is any way we can help you, anything you want, anything at all,”
declared the Engineer, "we would be so glad, so proud to help you.”