I was glad that I wouldn't have to do the questioning. Not straight off, anyway--not until I knew much more than I did, and all of the big, vital questions had been answered with candor and I could go right on feeling the way I did about her with a clear conscience. I hoped to God it would be with candor. If someone is dying and you can do nothing to save him and what he's done or hasn't done is of no importance to anyone but himself ... you don't ply him with questions. But what she'd done or hadn't done could send the sky ship down into the gulfs in flaming ruin, because all of the passengers are encased in a fragile kind of bubble and the slightest pinprick could puncture it. The pinprick, for instance, of an Earthside conspirator, traveling along with the bubble out into space and awaiting just the right moment to insert the tiny, darkly gleaming point of the pin under the skin of the bubble. And she wasn't dying, but alive--and could, if she had nothing to conceal, have no trouble in convincing the commander of the sky ship that any such fear was groundless. I had to take her straight to the Commander. Otherwise I'd have to take it up with someone of lesser authority and show him the insignia and question her myself in private. I couldn't see any advantage to be gained by that. It would leave the corpse in the Chart Room entirely unexplained and the Commander would not take kindly to having anything as disturbing as that left lying around in a loose-end way for him to worry about. It would mean, of course, that I would have to show him the insignia. That was the bad part, the one thing I wanted most to avoid. But I could see no effective way of avoiding it now, because he was, after all, in command of the sky ship and directly responsible for its safety. He had every right to be the first to question her, unless I chose to supplant that right with what the insignia represented. To do so would not have been wise for a dozen reasons, the chief one being that when a man is in a firm position to exercise reasonably high authority it's always a mistake to go over his head unless you're sure you can make a better job of it than he could, despite his specialized knowledge. I didn't think for a moment I could come anywhere near equaling Commander Littlefield's competence in guarding the safety of a Mars' rocket ... so to curtail his authority in a high-handed way would have been worse than inexcusable. But I would still have to show him the insignia ... or I would not be permitted to sit in on the questioning.