"If I'm right," he said, "that's no ship at all as we understand it, but some sort of a space-going suit for something terrifically large. Something like a giant squid, as I said, or some other long-tentacled creature. His body would lie here--in this space you said was about the size of a closet--and his tentacles or whatever they are, would reach out in these corridors to the various groups of instruments." Jeff frowned. "It sounds sensible," he muttered. "And in any case, he wouldn't be able to get outside his ship to fix anything that went wrong. And I take it there is something wrong, or else he wouldn't be jumping around inside." "Jeff," Pete said, "I'm going outside to take a close look at him." Jeff's head snapped up from the jigsaw puzzle. The old, sick fear had come back. It washed over him like a wave. "Why?" he demanded harshly. "To see if I can find out what's wrong with his ship," said Pete over his shoulder as he went to the airlock. "Coming?" "Wait!" cried Jeff. He stood up and followed his father. For a moment there, they stood facing each other, two tall men with less apparent physical difference between them than their ages might indicate, poised on the brink of an open break. "Wait," said Jeff again, and now his voice was lower, more under control. "Dad, there's no point in playing around any longer. You aren't going to be satisfied just to look around out there and then leave. You're going to do something. And if that's it I want to know now." * * * * * There was a moment's silence; then Pete turned back to Jeff, his face set. "That's right," he said. "I don't have to look. I know what's wrong. And I know what I'm going to do about it. There's a living intelligence trapped in that space-thing as you and I might be trapped. I can set it free with two of our motor jacks. If you've got one inkling of what it means to be ignored when you're caught like that, you'll help me. If not, I'm taking two jacks out the airlock and you can fire the motors and take off and be damned to you." Between the two big men the tension built and strained and broke. Jeff let out a ragged sigh. "All right," he said. "I'm with you." "Good," said the older man, and there was new life in his voice. "Get your suit on. I'll explain as we dress." "The trouble with our friend there is that he's fallen over. I see you don't understand, Jeff. Well, this ship of ours lands on her belly. We've got booster rockets all over the hull to correct our landing angle. But ships weren't always that way. They used to have to sit down on their tail. There's no furrow where that ship landed, only a circular blasted spot, so it figures. Maybe some of his mechanism went wrong at the last minute. "At any rate, I'm betting that if we get him upright again, he can take care of himself from there on out. So you and I are going to go out there with a couple of jacks and see if we can't jack him back up into position."