noon
But they were not aircraft in any ordinary meaning of the word . They were engines with fuel tanks and controls in their exhaust blast . When their engines failed , they were so much junk falling out of the sky . Joe happened to see the second crash , and he did n't go to noon mess at all . He had n't any appetite . Instead , he gloomily let himself be packed full of irrelevant information by the young lieutenant who considered that since Joe had been sent by security to look into sabotage , he must be given every possible opportunity to evaluate -- that would be the word the young lieutenant would use -- the situation . But all the time that Joe followed him about , his mind fumbled with a hunch .