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"That all depends on where you're standing, Walters!" said a voice from the hatch. The three spacemen whirled at the sound of the voice and were dumfounded by the appearance of Quent Miles, standing to one side of the hatch, holding an automatic paralo-ray rifle, trained on them. "Stay right where you are," he said softly. "The first man that moves gets frozen solid!"
"No," Brion said, still only half aware of the men. "But there is trouble with my own ship." He realized that they were looking intently at him, that he owed them some kind of explanation. "I thought I could find a way to stop the war. Now ... I'm not so sure." He hadn't intended to be so frank with the spacemen, but the words had been uppermost in his thoughts and had simply slipped out.
They stopped at a valve where spacemen were waiting. With them was an officer who carried a big case. "The instruments," MacFife said, pointing. "We've tinkered with them a bit, just to make it look real." "But why do you want to board the Connie?" MacFife's eye closed in a wink. "Ye'll see." There was a slight bump as the cruiser touched the Connie.
Maybe part of it was because he was free of the ship and at last not just excess baggage but a man with a definite job before him. Spacemen tended to be young. But until this moment Raf had never felt the real careless freedom of youth.
For two blocks on either side of the street, in building after building, cafés, pawnshops, cheap restaurants above and below the street level, supplied the needs of countless shadowy figures who came and went as silently as ghosts. Spaceman's Row was where suspended spacemen and space rats, prospectors of the asteroids for uranium and pitchblende, gathered and found short-lived and rowdy fun.
Almost running, the two spacemen disappeared into the swirling mist of deadly gases. No sooner were they out of sight than Tom Corbett and Astro, faces covered with oxygen masks, emerged from the warehouse and headed toward the ship, Miles and Brett close behind them with paralo-ray guns leveled at their backs. Roger Manning opened his eyes, then closed them. He lay perfectly still and listened.
"Commander Rémy Galliene of the Sagittarius." The Connie commander grunted. He was afraid, Rip realized. The Connie suspected a trick, and he had no idea what it might be. Galliene saw Rip's black uniform and hurried to shake his hand. "So this is the young lieutenant who is responsible! Lieutenant, today the spacemen honor the Planeteers because of you.
There was no moving track inward to the enlisted Planeteers' squad rooms. He legged it down the corridor in long leaps, muttering apologies as blue-clad spacemen and cadets moved to the wall to let him pass. The squad rooms were on two levels. He looked in the upper ones and found them deserted. The squads were on duty somewhere.
Keep your audio communicator in the jet boat on at all times. And be sure your belt communicator is always open. Check your oxygen supply and space suits. All clear?" One by one, the spacemen checked in through the audio communicators that all was clear.
They were silent all the way back to the station, each with his own thoughts Stefens puzzling over the cause of the crash, Loring and Mason exchanging quick furtive glances and wondering how long their story would hold up, and Tom wondering how much Roger's changing the power circuits on the radar had to do with the crash of the ship. "That's right," snapped Connel to the two enlisted spacemen.
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