Bessie, having at the moment nothing else to do, was busily plying the Sacred Cow not only for her own horoscope for the day, but also those of the several persons of whom she was most fond, while carefully keeping a shielding bunch of paper work in a place to make it appear that she was officially busy. The captain's horoscope, she recognized, didn't look much worse than the rest of them, but was definitely the worst. One of those mathematical jumbles that somehow didn't interpret clearly. None of them looked very good today.
Out on the rim, things were getting back to normal. The labs were functioning again, most of them according to their assigned, routine procedures; but in some, heads were drawn together over the absorbing diagrams supplied by Mike and Ishie.
Mike and Ishie themselves had already put in twelve hours almost without a break. Working under stress, neither of them had remembered to eat.
There was a cough at the entrance to the machine shop, and Dr. Millie Williams' soft voice said "May I come in?"
The two looked up as the slender figure of the dark-skinned biologist entered the lab, balancing "trays" with plastic bottles atop.
"If I know you, Dr. Ishie; and you, too, Mike—you haven't eaten," she said with a smile. "Now, have you?"
"Millie," said Mike, "you've just reminded me that I'm as hollow as a deserted bee-stump after the bears get through with it!"
"Little Millie," said Ishie, looking up at the figure nearly as tiny as his own, "you must be telepathic as well as beautiful. Confusion say 'Gee, I'm hungry!'"
"I'm told that the fate of the satellite depends on you two," Millie smiled. "I thought I'd just give our fate a little extra chance. Now drop what you're doing and light into this.