"You take Matt, Doc," said Wyckoff, authoritatively. "Don't make an announcement, just go the rounds and call out engine crew as if it were a piece of routine. Matt, you stand out in the hall and tell them there to report to the boom room presto. When you get 'em all out, Doc, go and tell Tim Daneshaw I'll be down to report in a minute. Jolly 'em up a bit if you can." Wyckoff himself advanced a couple of steps into the pilot-room. Powell passed him again on his way back to the massive data spitter and said, "Thought we asked you to clear out." His rudeness seemed not to affect the easy poise of the slim old man. Wyckoff's voice was conciliatory, "I've got to make some sort of report on this beehive to the captain. It's the general impression that we're in the middle of disaster." Powell roared, "Avery! Who let this out? The passengers are rioting!" "Not rioting--praying more likely," corrected the man at the door. "That'll keep 'em out of trouble," Avery flipped back, his pencil moving feverishly across a scratch pad. Wyckoff called across the clatter of the spitter, now operating with a ferocious din, "What'll we tell 'em, Avery? They've got to know something or there will be a riot or worse. Is there really any danger?" "There's always danger," Avery was growling again, "when some unmitigated unweaned engineers on an unmentionable planet cook up a foolproof system of astrogation." He handed the scratch pad to Jack White and waved a hand at A calculator. "Take off these and add them into the firing times. I'll send Wilman and Adams up and put them on the intercom for porthole reports during firing. I'm going with Sam and stop the rush for the life-boats we don't have." Donning his jak, he arose and kicked his way defiantly through the welter of paper and stamped free of it as he reached the door. He hurried up the corridor to the elevator, eight or ten paces in advance of Wyckoff, and jabbed the button. "Sam my boy," he barked impatiently, waiting for the car, "the worst cause of panic is panic. I've been on the market and I know!" * * * * * The elevator door slid shut and Wyckoff repeated his earlier question, "Is it really bad, El?" "Probably nothing a little prompt action can't fix," Avery replied. "It's going to take two more turnovers, though. You know we haven't any jets in the nose to amount to anything, and we'll have to tack back across our charted course like bats out of you know where. Carruthers will have to whip up a new batch of charts for the sky-watchers, too, but we can still outsmart those idiots on earth and land on Venus _if_ we want to." "If we _want_ to?" The car stopped and the two got out.