"Just so." The gray-haired man nodded, almost happily. "We survivors,
then, absorbed the charge gradually----"

"But what the----" Deston began.

"One moment, please, young man. You perhaps saw some of the bodies. What
were they like?"

"They looked ... well, not exactly as though they had exploded, but----"
he paused.

"Precisely." Gray-Hair beamed. "That eliminates all the others except
three--Morton's, Sebring's, and Rothstein's."

"You're a specialist in subspace, then?"

"Oh, no, I'm not a specialist at all. I'm a dabbler, really. A
specialist, you know, is one who learns more and more about less and
less until he knows everything about nothing at all. I'm just the
opposite. I'm learning less and less about more and more; hoping in time
to know nothing at all about everything."

"In other words, a Fellow of the College. I'm glad you're aboard, sir."

"Oh, a Theoretician?" Barbara's face lit up and she held out her hand.
"With dozens of doctorates in everything from Astronomy to Zoology?
I've never met ... I'm _ever_ so glad to meet you, Doctor----?"

"Adams. Andrew Adams. But I have only eight at the moment. Earned
degrees, that is."

"But what were you doing in this lifecraft? No, let me guess. You were
X-ray-eying it and fine-toothing it for improvements made since your
last trip, and storing the details away in your eidetic memory."

"Not eidetic, by any means. Merely very good."

"And how many metric tons of apparatus have you got in the hold?" Deston
asked.

"Less than six. Just what I _must_ have in order to----"

"Babe!" Jones' voice cut in. "Course change. Stay on alpha eighteen.
Shift beta to forty-four and gamma to two sixty-five."

* * * * *

Rendezvous was made. Both lifecraft hung motionless relative to the
_Procyon_'s hulk. No other lifecraft had escaped. A conference was held.

Weeks of work would be necessary before Deston and Jones could learn
even approximately what the damage to the _Procyon_ had been.
Decontamination was automatic, of course, but there would be literally
hundreds of hot spots, each of which would have to be sought out and
neutralized by hand. The passengers' effects would have to be listed and
stored in the proper cabins. Each body would have to be given velocity
away from the ship. And so on. Every survivor would have to work, and
work hard.

The two girls wanted to be together. The two officers almost _had_ to be
together,