She said, "But we shouldn't be alive . . ."
He said, "But we are." He added, glumly, "But for how long? This boat must be as radioactive as all hell. I suppose that it was the bomb that went off."
"It was," she told him. "But there's no radioactivity. I've tested. There is a counter in my bomb disposal kit."
He said, "It must be on the blink."
"It's not. It registers well enough with all the normal sources—my wristwatch, against the casing of the fusion power unit, and so on."
He said doubtfully, "I suppose we could have been thrown clear. Or we were in some cone of shadow . . . . Yes, that makes sense. We were toward the stern of the ship, and the shielding of her power plant must have protected us."
She asked, "What now?"
Grimes stared through the viewports of the control cabin. There was no sign of Skink. There was no sign of any wreckage from Delta Geminorum. The stars shone bright and hard in the blackness; the mini-Mannschenn had stopped and the boat was adrift in the normal Continuum.
He said, "We stay put."
She said, "Shouldn't Delamere be sniffing around to pick up the pieces?"
"Delamere's sure that there aren't any pieces," he told her, "just as I should be sure if I were in his shoes. And, in any case, he's in a hurry to get to Olgana. He knows we're dead, vaporized. But he'll have used his Carlotti to put in a report to Base, giving the coordinates of the scene of the disaster. When anything of this kind happens a ship full of experts is sent at once to make an investigation." He laughed. "And won't they be surprised when they find us alive and kicking!"
"Can't we use our radio to tell them?"
"We can't raise Skink on the N.S.T. transmitter while she's running on Mannschenn Drive. We can't raise the Base, either. Oh, they'd pick up the signal eventually—quite a few months from now. And you've seen the mess that our Carlotti set is in . . ."
"So we just . . . wait?"
"S.O.P. for shipwrecked spacemen," said Grimes. "We haven't a hope in hell of getting anywhere in our lifetimes unless we use Mannschenn Drive—and, looking at the mess the mini-Mannschenn is in, I'd sooner not touch it. We've survived so far. Let's stay that way."
"Couldn't you fix the Carlotti transceiver to let Base know that we're here?"
"I'm not a Carlotti technician, any more than I'm an expert on Mannschenn Drives."
"H'm." She looked around the quite commodious interior of the boat. "Looks like we have to set up housekeeping for a few days, doesn't it? We could be worse off, I suppose. Much worse off . . . . We've food, water, air, light, heat . . . Talking of heat, I may as well get into something more comfortable . . ."
Grimes, never one to look such a magnificent gift horse in the mouth, helped her off with her spacesuit. She helped him off with his. In the thick underwear that they were wearing under the suits they might just as well still have been armored. She came into his arms willingly enough, but there was no real contact save for mouth to mouth.
She whispered, "I'm still too warm . . ."
He said, "We'd better take our longjohns off, until we want them again. No point in subjecting them to needless wear and tear . . ."
"Are you seducing me, sir?"
"I wouldn't think of it!" lied Grimes.
"I don't believe you, somehow. Oh, John, how good it is to get away from that horrid Base and Frankie's nasty little ship! I feel free, free!" She pulled the zip of her longjohns down to the crotch. Her released breasts thrust out at him, every pubic hair seemed to have a life of its own, to be rejoicing in its freedom from restraint. Grimes smelled the odor of her—animal, pungent—and his body responded. His underwear joined hers, floating in mid-cabin in a tangle of entwining limbs. Within seconds he and the girl were emulating the pose of the clothing that they had discarded. Stirred by the air currents the garments writhed in sympathy with the movements of their owners.