FullReads

* * * * *

He slid the papers across his desk, and I picked them up.

“Yes, sir!” I said. “That will be all?”

“You understand your orders?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Very well. Good luck, Commander!”

I saluted and hurried out of the room, back to my impatient first officer.

“What’s up, sir?” he asked eagerly.

“Can’t say that I know, to be truthful about it. Perhaps nothing; perhaps a great deal. Give orders to take on all necessary supplies–in double-quick time. I’ve promised the Chief we’ll be ready to shove off in two hours. I’ll meet you in the navigating room, and give you all the information I have.”

Correy saluted and rushed away to give the necessary orders. Thoughtfully, I made my way through the narrow, ethon-lighted passageways to the navigating room, where Correy very shortly joined me.

Briefly, I repeated the Chief’s conversation, and we both bent over the charts and position reports.

“Hm-m!” Correy was lost in thought for a moment as he fixed the location in his mind. “Rather on the fringe of things. Almost anything could happen out there, sir. That would be on the old Belgrade route, would it not?”

“Yes. It’s still used, however, as you know, by some of the smaller, slower ships making many stops. Or was, until the recent order. Any guesses as to what we’ll find?”

“None, sir, except the obvious one.”

“Meteorites?”

Correy nodded.

“There’s some bad swarms, now and then,” he said seriously. I knew he was thinking of one disastrous experience the Ertak had had … and of scores of narrow escapes. “That would be the one likely explanation.”

“True. But those ships were old and slow, they could turn about and dodge more easily than a ship of the Ertak’s speed. At full space speed we’re practically helpless; can neither stop nor change our course in time to avoid an emergency.”

“Well, sir,” shrugged Correy, “our job’s to find the facts. I took the liberty of telling the men we were to be ready in an hour and a half. If we are, do we shove off immediately?”

“Just as soon as everything’s checked. I leave it to you to give the necessary orders. I know I can depend upon you to waste no time.”

“Right, sir,” said Correy, grinning like a schoolboy. “We’ll waste no time.”

In just a shade less than two hours after we had set down at Base, we were rising swiftly at maximum atmospheric speed, on our way to a little-traveled portion of the universe, where two ships, in rapid succession, had met an unknown fate.

* * * * *

“I wonder, sir, if you could come to the navigating room at once?” It was Kincaide’s voice, coming from the instrument in my stateroom.

“Immediately, Mr. Kincaide.” I asked no questions, for I knew my second officer’s cool-headed disposition. If something required my attention in the navigating room, in his opinion, it was something important. I threw on my uniform hurriedly and hastened to Kincaide’s side, wondering if at last our days of unrewarded searching were to bear fruit.

“Perhaps I called you needlessly, sir,” Kincaide greeted me apologetically, “but, considering the nature of our mission, I thought it best to have your opinion.” He motioned toward the two great navigating charts, operated by super-radio reflexes, set in the surface of the table before him.

In the center of each was the familiar red spark which represented the Ertak herself, and all around were the glowing points of greenish light which gave us, in terrestial terms, the locations of the various bodies to the right and left, above and below.

“See here, sir–and here?” Kincaide’s blunt, capable forefingers indicated spots on each of the charts. “Ever see anything like that before?”