Channing closed his eyes and shuddered in mock horror. "Chop out the center," he said. The "center" meant the topmost fronds of the long blades; their roots were embedded in the trays that filled the cylindrical floor. Some of the blades would die--Martian saw grass is tender in spite of the wicked spines that line the edge--but this was an emergency with a capital E. Cleaning the centermost channel out of the station was no small job. The men who put up Venus Equilateral had no idea that someone would be using the station for a sighting tube some day. The many additions to the station through the years made the layout as regular and as well-planned as the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. So for hour upon hour, men swarmed in the central, weightless channel and wielded acetylene torches, cutting steel. Not in all cases, but there were many. In three miles of storage rooms, a lot of doors and bulkheads can be thrown up without crowding the size of the individual rooms. Channing spoke into the microphone at the north end of Venus Equilateral, and said: "Walt? We've got a sight. Can you see?" "Yop," said Walt. "And say, what happens to me after that bum guess?" "That was quite a stretch, Walt. That 'hour, God willing,' worked itself into four hours, God help us." "O.K., so I was optimistic. I thought that those doors were all on the center line." "They are supposed to be, but they aren't huge and a little misalignment can do a lot of light-stopping. Can we juggle mirrors now?" "Sure as shooting. Freddie in the flitter?" "Yup. He thinks he's at the right distance now. But he's got a light outfit, and this radar can be calibrated to the foot. Is the mirror-dingbat running?" "We're cooking with glass right now." "Brother," groaned Channing, "if I had one of those death rays that the boys were crowing about back in the days before space-hopping became anything but a bit of fiction, I'd scorch your ears--or burn 'em off--or blow holes in you--or disintegrate you--depending on what stories you read. I haven't heard such a lousy pun in seventeen years--Hey, Freddie, you're a little close. Run out a couple of miles, huh?--and, Walt, I've heard some doozies." There was a click in the phones and a cheerful voice chimed in with: "Good morning, fellows. What's with the Great Quest?" Channing answered, "Hi, Babe, been snoozing?" "Sure, as any sensible person would. Have you been up all the time?" "Yeah. We're still up against the main trouble with telephones--the big trouble, same as back in 1887--our friends have no telephone! You'd be surprised how elusive a spaceship can be in the deep. Sort of a non-existent, microscopic speck, floating in absolutely nothing. We have a good idea of where they should be, and possibly why and what--but we're really playing with blindfolds, handcuffs, ear plugs, mufflers, nose clamps, and tongue-ties. I am reminded--Hey, Freddie, about three more hundred yards--of the two blind men."