Nothing happened. He did not challenge the ferry, and he didn't answer hails. Contact with the station was made through the radar automatics, and I was put off on board as routinely as though I was being let into a movie--but a lot more rapidly. The control room was dark and confusing, and at first I didn't see Gascoigne anywhere. The Earthlight coming through the observation port was brilliant, but beyond the edges of its path the darkness was almost absolute, broken only by the little stars of indicator lenses. A faint snicking sound turned my eyes in the right direction. There was Gascoigne. He was hunched over the bombardier board, his back to me. In one hand he held a small tool resembling a ticket-punch. Its jaws were nibbling steadily at a taut line of tape running between two spools; that had been the sound I'd heard. I recognized the device without any trouble; it was a programmer. But why hadn't Gascoigne heard me come in? I hadn't tried to sneak up on him, there is no quiet way to come through an airlock anyway. But the punch went on snicking steadily. "Col. Gascoigne," I said. There was no answer. I took a step forward. "Col. Gascoigne, I'm Harris of CIG. What are you doing?" The additional step did the trick. "Stay away from me," Gascoigne growled, from somewhere way down in his chest. "I'm programming the bomb. Punching in the orders myself. Can't depend on my crew. Stay away." "Give over for a minute, I want to talk to you." "That's a new one," said Gascoigne, not moving. "Most of you guys were rushing to set up launchings before you even reported to me. Who the hell are you, anyhow? There's nobody on board, I know _that_ well enough." "I'm Peter Harris," I said. "From CIG--you called us, remember? You asked us to send help." "Doesn't prove a thing. Tell me something I _don't_ know. Then maybe I'll believe you exist. Otherwise--beat it." "Nothing doing. Put down that punch." Gascoigne straightened slowly and turned to look at me. "Well, you don't vanish, I'll give you that," he said. "What did you say your name was?" "Harris. Here's my ID card." Gascoigne took the plastic-coated card tentatively, and then removed his glasses and polished them. The gesture itself was perfectly ordinary, and wouldn't have surprised me--except that Gascoigne was not wearing glasses. "It's hard to see in here," he complained. "Everything gets so steamed up. Hm. All right, you're real. What do you want?" His finger touched a journal. Silently, the tape began to roll from one spool to another. "Gascoigne, stop that thing. If you drop any bombs there'll be hell to pay. It's tense enough down below as it is. And there's no reason to bomb anybody."