Since Natasa has quoted from my argument, I feel compelled to jump
in and add that there's another important point to that argument. Here's
the rest of my essay:
"As for the risk to his own life and Vila's: Not negligible, but
not as great as everyone seems to be assuming either. Only Avon and Grant
would have died at the instant of detonation. The risk to the rest of the
population was from lethal radiation which we were told would take several
hours to overspread the planet. Since Blake and Vila were 4000 miles away
from the bomb, they'd have had every chance of teleporting out safely long
before the radiation reached them."
In other words, Vila panicked (when didn't he?), and Blake was
understandably too focused on Avon's (imminent) danger to take the time
out to explain to the man that the risk to *their* lives *wasn't*
imminent.
Sondra