Fine, says Cray, presumably the weapons will be thoroughly obsolete
and recognizable only to a Historian--
Lennie says the construction of no weapon developed by the Space
Department has ever been released; making it plain that anyone but a
Nitwit knows that already.
Eru and Kirsty have been busy for some time writing notes to each
other and she now gives a small sharp cough and having collected our
attention utters the following Address.
"There is a point we seem to have missed. If I may recapitulate, the
idea is to take this ship _Gilgamesh_ to Incognita and make it appear
as though she had crashed there while attempting to land. I understand
that the ship has been buried in the polar cap; though she must have
been melted out if the people on _Crusoe_ examined the engines. Of
course the cold--All the same there may have been ... well ...
changes. Or when ... when we thaw the ship out again--"
I find I am swallowing good and hard, and several of the others look
sick, especially Lennie. Lennie has his eyes fixed on the colonel; it
is not prescience, but a slight sideways movement of the colonel's eye
causes him to blurt out, "What is _he_ doing here?"
Meaning Mr. Yardo who seems to have been asleep for some time, with
his eyes open and grinning like the spikes on a dog collar. The
colonel gives him another sideways look and says, "Mr. Yardo is an
expert on the rehabilitation of space-packed materials."
This is stuff transported in un-powered hulls towed by
grappling-beams; the hulls are open to space hence no need for
refrigeration, and the contents are transferred to specially equipped
orbital stations before being taken down to the planet. But--
Mr. Yardo comes to life at the sound of his name and his grin widens
alarmingly.
"Especially meat," he says.
* * * * *
It is maybe two hours afterwards, Eru having adjourned the meeting
abruptly so that we can ... er ... take in the implications of the new
data. Lennie has gone off somewhere by himself; Kirsty has gone after
him with a view to Mothering him; Eru, I suspect, is looking for
Kirsty; Pavel and Aro and Dillie and the Crow are in a cabin arguing
in whispers; Nick and P. Zapotec are exploring one of the Hoppers,
cargo-carrying, drop-shaped, and I only hope they don't hop through
the hull in it.
B and I having done a tour of the ship and ascertained all this have
withdrawn to the Conference Room because we are tired of our cabins
and this seems to be the only other place to sit.
B breaks a long silence with the remark that However often you see it
M'Clare's technique is something to watch, like choosing my statement
to open with, it broke the ice beautifully.