The radio crackled again. “Are you sure that you want to do this?”

I sighed. “Look, can we talk about this later?”

“I’m just saying that she seems a little obsessive.”

“Really, right now is not good.”

“Hey, you’re my friend, you know. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t point out some things?”

I looked up from my work. “I’m trying to splice this junction together. If I do this wrong, the whole colony blows up, so maybe you want to keep the yakking to a minimum.”

“You know how they say that you can always tell how the girl will turn out by looking at the mother.”

Now, that made me angry. “OK, now I really don’t want to discuss this now. I’m going to turn off my radio now.”

I jammed the volume button to MUTE , but before I could silence Herb, he said, “Hey, watch out for that node. It’s still –”