Ives turned toward them, and Paresi's relief was noticeable. Ives said,
"They want us dead."
"Do they?" asked the Captain.
"They don't want us to leave the ship, and they don't want the ship to
leave the planet."
"Then it's the ship they want."
"Yeah," amended Ives, "without us."
Paresi said, "You can't conclude that, Ives. They've inconvenienced us.
They've turned us in on ourselves, and put a drain on our intangible
resources as men and as a crew. But so far they haven't actually done
anything to us. We've done it to ourselves."
Ives looked at him scornfully. "We wrecked the unwreckable controls,
manufactured that case-hardened darkness, and talked to ourselves on an
all-wave carrier with no source, about information no outsider could
get?"
"I didn't say any of that." Paresi paused to choose words. "Of course
they're responsible for these phenomena. But the phenomena haven't hurt
us. Our reactions to the phenomena are what has done the damage."
"A fall never hurt anyone, they told me when I was a kid," said Ives
pugnaciously. "It's the sudden stop."
Paresi dismissed the remark with a shrug. "I still say that while we
have been astonished, frightened, puzzled and frustrated, we have not
been seriously threatened. Our water and food and air are virtually
unlimited. Our ability to live with one another under emergency
situations has been tested to a fare-thee-well, and all we have to do is
recognize the emergency as such and that ability will rise to optimum."
He smiled suddenly. "It could be worse, Ives."
"I suppose it could," said Ives. "That blackness could move in until it
really crowded us, or--"