"What are you doing?" asked the Captain.

"Don't you think they ought to be answered?"

"Turn it off, Ives."

"But--"

"Turn it off!" Ives did. An expedition is an informal, highly democratic
group, and can afford to be, for when the situation calls for it, there
is never any question of where authority lies. The Captain said, "There
is nothing we can say to them which won't yield them more information.
Nothing. For all we know it may be very important to them to learn
whether or not we received their message. Our countermove is obviously
to make no move at all."

"You mean just sit here and wait until they do something else?" asked
Johnny, appalled.

The Captain thumped his shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll do something in
some other area than communications. Hoskins--are those landing suits
ready?"

"All but," rapped Hoskins. He scooped up the oxygen bottle and
disappeared.

Paresi said, "We'll tell them something if we _don't_ answer."

The Captain set his jaw. "We do what we can, Nick. We do the best we
can. Got any better ideas?"

Paresi shrugged easily and smiled. "Just knocking, skipper. Knock
everything. Then what's hollow, you know about."

"I should know better than to jump salty with you," said the Captain,
all but returning the doctor's smile. "Johnny. Hoskins. Prepare for
exploratory patrol."

"I'll go," said Paresi.

"Johnny goes," said the Captain bluntly, "because it's his first trip,
and because if he isn't given something to do he'll bust his adrenals.
Hoskins goes, because of all of us, the Engineer is most expendable.
Ives stays because we need hair-trigger communications. I stay to
correlate what goes on outside with what goes on inside. You stay
because if anything goes wrong I'd rather have you fixing the men up
than find myself trying to fix you up." He squinted at Paresi. "Does
that knock solid?"

"Solid."

"Testing, Johnny," Ives said into a microphone. Johnny's duplicated
voice, from the open face-plate of his helmet and from the intercom
speaker, said, "I hear you fine."

"Testing, Hoskins."

"If I'd never seen you," said the speaker softly, "I'd think you were
right here in the suit with me." Hoskins' helmet was obviously buttoned
up.

The two men came shuffling into the cabin, looking like gleaming ghosts
in their chameleon-suits, which repeated the color of the walls.
"Someday," growled Johnny, "there'll be a type suit where you can
scratch your--"

"Scratch wh