Without exchanging another word, the two moved into the adjoining room. It was the communications room. Very big. Ten or more people were huddled around the main transmitter. Two radiotelegraph operators, each equipped with earphones, wrote continuously against a background of clicking instruments, electrical humming, and an incessant, below-decks whine. Swarms of control lights on every wall: the place looked the inside of a trunk exchange. The two radiomen were almost prostrate over their desks; both in shirt sleeves, both with drenched faces—one pale, the other older and more average-looking, with a head scar plainly visible in the place where the headset band made a parting in his hair. Two men were seated a little distance away, one of whom Pirx recognized as the commander.

They were already mildly acquainted. The commander of the Titan was a short, grizzly-haired man with a small poker face. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, seemingly distracted by one of his shoe tips.

Pirx treaded softly up to the radiomen, craned his whole body, and began reading over the shoulder of the man with the head scar.

“… six-eighteen-point-three proceeding at full thrust time of arrival eight-zero-twelve. Out.”

The radioman slid a blank over with his left hand and kept on writing.

“Luna Base to Albatross-4 Aresluna. Check on-board contamination stop answer in Morse stop too far out of range for radio stop how many hours can you maintain emergency thrust stop estimated drift zero-six-point-twenty-one stop. Over.”

“Dasher-2 Aresterra to Luna Base. Am proceeding at full thrust destination Albatross sector sixty-four have overheated reactor but proceeding on course anyway stop am now six milliparsecs away from designated point of SOS. Out.”

The second operator, the more pallid-looking of the two, let out a muffled groan. Immediately everyone leaned over his shoulder. Mindell, the man who had met Pirx at the door, relayed the recorded messages back to the commander while the operator went on transcribing.