SEN. LARCH: During your press interview, you referred to one of these entry points as a 'boat bay'. Will you elaborate further? LT. COL. GREAVES: Yes. It was a large recessed area in the hull where the auxiliary craft used by the passengers and the crew when they disembarked had been moored. A lock gave onto this area, and I was reasonably certain that I could burn my way into the ship with the small acetylene torch that was part of the _Camaraderie 17's_ hardware. This seems a rather naive assumption on my part in the light of the analysis of the fragment of metal I brought back, but I had no way of knowing at the time that the hull, however susceptible it might be to meteors, was utterly impervious in a number of other respects. In any event, as matters turned out I didn't have to use the torch, for the boat-bay lock had been improperly sealed by the last person to disembark. SEN. NICHOLSON: Senator Larch, I would like to have the floor for a few moments. SEN. LARCH: Very well, Senator Nicholson. SEN. NICHOLSON: To return to this sample piece of metal you brought back with you, Colonel Greaves: During your press interview you described it as 'a fragment of gopherwood'. In all honesty, colonel, don't you think that this was a rather flippant and ill-considered remark, and that by making it, you lent undue credence to what was--and is--at best, an exceedingly tenuous theory? LT. COL. GREAVES: I do not consider the remark to have been either flippant or ill-considered. I was asked what I thought the metal was, and I gave an honest answer. Furthermore, my immediate superiors agree with me. Gopherwood has never been identified, and the term could very well refer to the alloy that went into the construction of Spaceship X. SEN. NICHOLSON: I shudder to think of the blow our international prestige will receive should the scrolls you brought back with you fail to validate your conclusions. Our space program will become the laughingstock of the entire world. I simply cannot understand why greater secrecy was not employed in this matter. LT. COL. GREAVES: Too much of the story had already been made public through radio and television coverage to make denying it practicable. In any event, I'm certain that the scrolls will provide the necessary proof. According to Dr. Noyes, they contain similarities to one of the early Mediterranean alphabets, and this certainly suggests that the descendants of whoever wrote them must have had something to do with the development of that alphabet. SEN. LARCH: Do you have any further questions, Senator Nicholson? SEN. NICHOLSON: Not for the moment--no. SEN. LARCH: I will proceed then. You and Commander Perkins are of equal rank, Colonel Greaves. May I ask how you ascertained which of you would do the boarding after authorization to do so came through?