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"It's all yours clear ether," he reported. Ali stood with his back to the wall and Dane still lingered in the portal. Both of them fixed their attention on Rip's left hand. If he gave the agreed upon signal! Their fingers were linked loosely in their belts only an inch or so from their sleep rods.
Or did Shannon have some definite port in mind? He did not have time to ask before they lifted. But once they were space borne again he voiced his question. Rip's face was serious. "Frankly " he began and then hesitated for a long moment before he added, "I don't know. If we can only get the Captain or Craig on their feet again "
The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble.
Rip's hound came back soon, his tongue low, his tail between his legs. A number called to him, but he seemed to know his own mind perfectly, and made for the stream and lay down in the middle of it, lapping the shallow water, and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. A crowd of hunters watched him. "Looks so he'd been ketched by a bear," said one.
Joe Barris had told the officers of Rip's class, "You might say the spacemen own space, but we Planeteers own everything solid that's found in it." The Planeteers were the specialists in science, exploration, colonization, and fighting. The spacemen carried them back and forth, kept them supplied, and handled their message traffic.
Also, one of the Connies got badly cut, another had some broken bones, and a third one bled into high vack when Koa cracked his bubble." The doctor answered Rip's question. "Your men are all right. We put the one with the cracked bubble into high compression for a while, just to relieve his pain a little. The other one didn't bleed much. He's back in the squad room right now.
So compelling was that demand that Dane's fingers went to the answer key before he remembered and snatched them back, to fold his hands in his lap. "Identify " the expressionless voice of the translator droned over their heads. Rip's hands were on the control board, playing the buttons there with the precision of a musician creating some symphonic masterpiece.
This suspicion, already latent, and roused, perhaps, in the first instance long ago by the mystery of Rip's avoidance of his master, and by the shattering of Valentine's musical powers, was confirmed in the strongest way when Julian appeared a few minutes later. Yet the change in Julian would have seemed to most people far more remarkable.
Rip's heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war Congress-Stony-Point; he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"
Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray.
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