Lancelot Biggs was there, too, and Dick Todd, our second mate. Mr. Biggs was staring at me curiously. Now he said, "Sparks--perhaps you'd like to show Mr. Thaxton your equipment?" "Why not?" I said. I showed him the ship's inter-communicating system, the contact controls with which we get Lunar III, the asteroid stations, and the lightships off the various planets. I showed him the dwarf Ampie used to keep down excess voltage on the storage plates. I showed him all the things that make visitors "oh!" and "ah!" He "ohed!" and "ahed!" at the right time, then he asked, "And that visiplate device? I never saw one like that before. Is that something new?" "So new," I said, "that Mr. Biggs invented it. A urano-selenoid plate. Maybe you'd better explain its operation, Mr. Biggs. You can do it better than I can." I meant the suggestion as a joke, because Lancelot Biggs is the most bashful man in space. But to my surprise he stepped forward, a thoughtful look on his homely puss, and began explaining the plate. And to make a crazy situation loonier, he garbled the explanation like a woman describing a picture-show! That _was_ unusual. Because Biggs' one motivating principle, as he had often demonstrated, was to "Get the theory first!" But this time, while I stood baffled, while Dick Todd frowned and looked puzzled, while Cap Hanson hemmed and hawed as restlessly as a frog on a hot griddle, Biggs stammered through an almost hopelessly tangled explanation. The way he described the operation of that audio, it would take a man approximately fourteen light years to tune in the nearest station in space. Twice he fumbled for a word. Each time the little passenger, Thaxton, who was hanging intently on his fumbling fumbles, supplied the missing term. And when, finally, he had faltered to a conclusion: "Well," said the visitor, "that's very interesting. Thank you very much, Lt. Biggs. And now, Captain--you were going to show me your storage holds, I believe? Didn't you say something about the aft holds?" "Migawd, no!" said the skipper. "I mean--er--no. There's nothin' down there. We'll go visit the _for'rd_ hold." And they left. All of them, that is, but Lancelot Biggs. He made some excuse and stayed there in the control-turret with me. Being now his bunkmate as well as his friend, I took the liberty of letting the formalities go when we were alone. "After this, Lanse," I kidded him, "when you give a speech, you ought to pass out blueprints along with it. I wouldn't know how to operate that gadget myself from the explanation you gave. Matter of fact, I'm not sure I'll do it right the next time I try." * * * * * Strangely, he looked pleased. He said, "You think so, Sparks? You really think so?" "Granted," I said, "that I can actually think. So why the enthusiasm?" He turned serious suddenly.