Kiffer frowned at Roysland, then looked down at his fingernails. "You don't need to go along." "Why not?" Kiffer kept looking at his nails for a full five seconds. Then he looked up and said: "Look, Roysland, suppose what you suspect is true. Suppose that it isn't an enemy weapon, but a backfire from the aJ guns. If so, then we'll be mindjammed when we test out the fleet's weapons. And we can't afford to have you in that condition." "I know it," said Roysland, "but there's no other way I can get the data. Besides, Bilford is having some success with using microwaves on the patients; there's reason to believe that the condition is temporary." Kiffer shrugged and spread his hands. "O.K.; if that's your orders—" He let his voice trail off. Then: "But I still don't like it. Look at it from my viewpoint; if I'm knocked out, I can depend on you to figure out a way to bring me out of it. But if you're out, too, what's to become of me?" Roysland laughed. "That's the best reason you could have given. Thanks. But I'm still going." It took just a little more than two hours for the Space-fleet ordnance crews to replace the aJ projectors on the X-69. Roysland's theory was simple. Although the aJ guns might be responsible for the mindjamming effect, it was obvious that they didn't cause it every time. It was possible that there were slight differences in the backwash of radiation—slight differences caused by variations in the projectors themselves. The weapons of the Bedevin and the Killiver went into the turrets of the X-69; if there were any basis for the theory, at least two of those guns would be responsible for the mindjamming effect. The X-69 left Kandoris VI at 0500 hours, aimed herself for the vast void of the Lesser Rift, and cut in her no-space generators. The drive slammed her abruptly up past the velocity of light and into multiples thereof. Roysland had a cabin to himself near the upper deck at the nose of the ship, just beneath the control bridge. With Kiffer's aid, he set up recording instruments at various points throughout the ship, started them, and promptly forgot them. He was aboard as a human observer; the instruments had their own job to do. Roysland pushed his muscular bulk up the stair to the control bridge. Above him rose the hard, transparent dome of the ship's nose. He stood for a moment, watching the stars move
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