I nodded, and she went deathly pale. "But don't worry," I said quickly.
"It may not be as bad as we think."
"What!" she gasped. "Fifteen little boys missing on an alien planet,
and it may not be bad? Are you out of your mind?"
"If you'll calm down a bit and let me explain." I suggested.
Snow leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "Go ahead," she said
resignedly.
I told her about my being picked up at work by the Security Agents, of
my meeting with Baxter, and of my investigation of _Phobos II_. She
listened that far in silence, then could hold back no longer.
"But what did you find in those lockers? And what does the takeoff
thrust and the dehumidifying system have to do with the boys'
disappearance?"
I smiled reassuringly at her. "Listen, Snow. Baxter, myself, and
probably you, too, have one reaction in common about the boys'
vanishment from a ship in space. Our very first word on the subject
is an incredulous 'Impossible.' Of course, we're using it in the
colloquial sense; that of 'I don't believe it!' But if we take it in
its literal sense, we'll be absolutely correct. Such a thing _is_
impossible."
Snow opened her mouth, but I shushed her unspoken words with a wave
of my hand. "I know, you're about to spout something about magnetic
grapples and mid-space boardings, or even about long distance
teleporting rays--none of which have as yet, so far as we know, been
invented--or some such rot. But what are the arguments against these
two solitary possibilities?
"As to the first; Anders, the pilot, would surely have noticed another
ship in his vicinity. The meteorite warnings would have begun jangling
when the ship was still hundreds of miles away. And if it could,
somehow, evade the signalling devices, Anders would still have heard
the ship make contact. You can't drive up in a spaceship big enough to
hold at least fifteen normal-sized boys, besides your own crew, and
just not be noticed!
"So we come to the second, and only other, possibility: Were the boys
kidnapped by some ultrasuper teleportation beam? The answer, of course,
is a resounding, 'Hell, no!'"