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felt a little tense, of course;
but he had long ago learned to control himself even in high places. His
nippers flashed from one holdfast to another as he made his way aft to the
point where the few remaining refrigerator attachments were still intact. Two
of these were the ones which extended entirely though the hull as electrical
contacts, and were therefore, the ones which caused Dondragmer the most
concern. The others, as he had hoped, were prying out of the cruiser's skin
like nails; but these last ones would have to be severed, and severed so they
could be reconnected later on. Welding and soldering were arts which
Dondragmer knew only in theory, but whatever substitute was to be used would
certainly need a stub projecting from the hull as a starting point. The
captain wanted to make particularly sure that the cutting was done far enough
out to leave one.
The cutting itself, as he had already been told, would be no trouble with
Mesklinite saws. He selected carefully the points where the cuts were to be
made, and saw two of his sailors started on this task; he warned the rest to
get out of the way when the bar was free. This meant not only down to the
surface but well away from the hull; the idea was to lower the metal on the
lock side, once it was detached, but
Dondragmer was a cautious being where weights were concerned and knew that the
bar might just possibly not wait to be lowered. Even a Mesklinite would regret
being underneath when it descended from the top of the hull, feeble as
Dhrawn's gravity seemed to them.
All this had taken the best part of an hour. The captain was wondering about
the progress of the foot party, but there was another part of the melting
project to check first. He reentered the ship and sought the laboratory, where
Borndender was readying a power unit to fit the makeshift resistor. Actually
there was little to be done; polarized sockets, one at one end of the block
and one at the other, would provide direct current if the bar could be gotten
into the holes, and any changes needed to make a fit possible would have to be
made on the bar rather than the power box. It took only a moment to make this
clear to the captain, who looked for himself, decided the scientist was
obviously right, and made his way hastily back to the bridge. Only when he got
there and tried to call Benj did he realize that he had never removed his
airsuit; talking to Borndender through it was one thing, but the radio was
quite another. He stripped it off far enough to get his speaking-siphon into
the open and spoke again.
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Star%20Light%20(Part%203%20of%204).h
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Star Light
"I'm back, Benj. Has anything happened to Stakendee?" He finished removing the
suit while waiting for the answer, smoothed it, and stowed it close to the
center hatchway. It didn't belong there, but there wouldn't be time to get it
down to the rack by the main lock and return before Benj's words.
"Nothing really important, as far as I can tell, Captain," came the boy's
voice. "They've walked a long way, thought I can't tell just how far-maybe
three miles since you went, but that's a guess. There has been no sign of
either flier, and the only thing they, or I, have seen which might possibly
have affected either of them has been an occasional patch of cloud a few
hundred feet up-at least, that's what Stak guesses; I
can't see well enough myself-drifting back toward the
Kwembly.
I suppose if you accidentally flew into a big cloud you might get disoriented
and if it was low enough crash before you could straighten out; there aren't
any blind flying instruments on those things, are there? But it's hard to
believe they'd do such a thing-of course, if they were keeping their eyes on
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the ground instead of their flying-but none of the clouds we've seen so far is
anywhere near big enough to give them time to lose their way, Stak says."
Dondragmer was inclined to share this doubt about clouds being
responsible-would have doubted it even had he not had reason for another
opinion. An upward glance showed that no clouds had yet reached the
Kwembly;
the stars twinkled everywhere. Since Benj had said they were coming toward the
cruiser, the ones Stakendee had seen must be at the edge of the pattern, and
they must have been much farther to the west when the fliers were up. This
might mean nothing as far as Kervenser was concerned-he could have been a
long, long way from the
Kwembly
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