‘Good.’
She swung on him, her brows drawing together. ‘What’s good about it? What are you up to, anyhow?’
‘Nothing very awful,’ he said, trying to be placating. Til tell you in a minute. First of all, have you figured out how to get the grub moving again? I’m starving.’
‘Yes, that’s what the third oval on the sleep board is – the phone system locks. There’s a potentiometer system on the side of the board that chooses what’s activated – food, phones, doors, and so on. If you’ll move over a minute, I’ll show you.’
‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, Jeanette, but you know how it is – now that I’ve got my mitts on this thing I hate to let go of it.’
“That figures. What are you going to do with it?’
‘I don’t know till I’ve got it doped better. First, how about this business of putting the prisoners crumped without any suits?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Whadd’ya mean, no?’ he said, feeling the ugliness rise again. ‘Listen, chick -‘
He caught himself, but with an awful feeling that it was too late. She watched him damping himself down with sober amusement, and then said:
‘Go on. That was the true hyena laugh.’
He clenched his fists, and again fought himself back to normal, aware that she was observing every step of the process.
He said:
‘I’m sorry. I’m tired and hungry. I’ll try not to snarl at you again. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ But she said nothing more.
‘So what about this crump effect?’
‘Sorry I won’t answer any more questions until you’ve answered one of mine. It’s very simple. Once you’ve really got control of the ship – and you can’t get it without me – what do you plan to do with it? You keep telling me you’ll tell me “in a minute”. Tell me now.’