The silence was so long that I thought he'd gone off the air again, like some kind of ghost, fading and reappearing. I was very cold now, and sat with my hands folded into my arms and my neck hunched into my coat. There was something weird about this whole thing: Croder was sitting on some sort of time bomb and he was having to use an awful lot of control in the way he handled me. He wasn't used to that. Finally I couldn't stand the silence any more.

'Is it a mission?' I asked him.

'It is a rescue mission. We — I — have to get someone out.'

I waited for more, but he'd stopped. T didn't ask him 'out of where' because that didn't make a lot of difference. He meant out of trouble.

The air in the room seemed to shiver suddenly as the sharp voice came from the main console across from us — I tell you we can't hope to go in without a shield.

Tilson moved again beside me, unnerved. He's normally a stoic type and can keep as still as a lizard for hours.

I said to Croder: 'Why can't someone else do it?'

He came back a little faster this time. 'Of those people available, I think you stand the best chance. If there's a chance at all.'

'I'm not available. Listen, I came off the last thing two weeks ago, didn't anyone tell you that? Two weeks.' My voice had risen a fraction and I didn't like that, but it might give him a clue as to the condition I was in.

'I know that, yes.' He paused again. 'You did rather well.'

I left that one. Every word he said was a baited hook.

'A very great deal depends, you see, on whether we can do anything for this man. It touches all of us.'