Tex could. Matt crossed the passageway to Tex's tiny room and changed. He belted in tightly at the waist, distributed the wrinkles in back, and hoped for the best. The three headed for the cabin.
'I'm glad I don't have to report by myself,' Tex announced. 'I'm nervous.'
'Relax,' Oscar advised. 'Captain McAndrews is supposed to be a very human sort of a guy.'
'Hadn't, you heard? McAndrews is detached-busted his ankle. At the last minute the Department ordered Captain Yajicey to command the expedition.' '>j
'Yancey!' Oscar let out a low whistle. 'Oh, my sore feet!'
'What's the matter, Oscar?' Matt demanded. 'You know him?'
'My father knew him. Father had the fresh-foods con- : tract for the port at New Auckland when Yancey- Lieutenant Yancey, then-was portmaster.' They stopped out- ' side the commanding officer's cabin.
'That ought to give you an inside track.'
'Not likely! They didn't get along.'
'I wonder if I did right,' Tex mused darkly, 'when I wangled the swap from the Oak Ridge?'
'Too late to fret. Well, I guess we might-' Oscar stopped! speaking, for the door in front of them suddenly opened! and they found themselves facing the commanding officer. He was tall, wide-shouldered, and flat-hipped, and so handsome that he looked like a television star playing a; Patrol officer. ;
'Well?' he snapped. 'Don't stand chatting outside my; door. Come in!' ;
They filed in silently. Captain Yancey sat down, facing them, and looked them over, one after the other. 'What's the trouble, gentlemen?' he said presently. 'Are you all| struck dumb?'
Tex found his voice. 'Cadet Jarman, sir, reporting to the Captain.' Yancey's eyes flicked over to Matt.
Matt wet his lips. _'Cadet Dodson, sir.'
'Cadet Jensen, sir, reporting as ordered.' The office^ looked at Oscar sharply, then spoke to him in Venerian.
'Do these ears detect some echo of the speech of the Fair Planet
'It is true, thou old and wise one.'
'Never could stand that silly talk,' Yancey commented, relapsing into Basic. 'I won't ask you where you are from, but-is your father in the provisions racket?'
'My father is a food wholesaler, sir.'
'I thought so.' The Captain continued to look at him for a moment, then turned to Matt. 'Now, Mister, what is the idea of the masquerade? You look like a refugee from an emigrant ship.'
Matt tried to explain; Yancey cut him short. 'I'm not interested in excuses. I keep a taut ship. Remember that.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
The Captain settled back and struck a cigarette. 'Now, gentlemen, you are no doubt wondering as to why I sent for you. I must admit to a slight curiosity as to the sort of product the old school is turning out. In my day, it was a real course of sprouts and no nonsense about it. But now I understand that the psychologists have taken over and the old rules are all changed.'
He leaned forward and fixed Matt with his eyes. 'They aren't changed here, gentlemen. In my ship, the old rules still obtain.'
No one answered. Yancey waited, then went on, 'The regulations state that you shall pay a social call on your commanding officer within twenty-four hours after reporting to a new ship or station. Please consider that the social call has commenced. Sit down, gentlemen. Mr. Dodson, you will find coffee over there on your left. Will you please favour me by pouring it?'
Forty minutes later they left, feeling quite confused. Yanny had demonstrated that he could put them most charmingly at their ease and had displayed a dry, warm wit and a gift for telling anecdotes. Matt decided that he liked him.
But just as they left Yancey glanced at his clock and laid, 'I'll see you later, Mr. Dodson-in fifteen minutes.'
Once they were outside Tex demanded, 'What's he want to see you for, Matt?'
'Can't you guess?' answered Oscar. 'Look, Matt, I'll tear over to the tailor shop for you-you can't do that and shave, too, not in fifteen minutes.'
'You're a lifesaver, Oz!'
P.R.S. Aes Triplex blasted from Moon Base thirteen hours later in a trajectory intended to produce an elliptical orbit with its far end in the asteroid belt. Her orders were to search for the missing P.R.S. Pathfinder. The
Pathfinder had been engaged in radar-charting a sector of the asteroid belt for the Uranographic Office of the Patrol. Her mission had taken her beyond the range of ship-type radio; nevertheless she should have reported in by radio nearly six months earlier, at which time she should have been approaching conjunction with Mars. But Deimos Station, around Mars, had been unable to raise the Pathfinder; she was presumed lost.
The possible locations of the Pathfinder were a moving zone in space, defined by using geometry, ballistics, the characteristics of the ship, her mission, and her last reported location, course, and speed. This zone was divided into four sectors and the Aes Triplex was to search one sector while three other Patrol vessels covered the other sectors. The joint task was designated 'Operation Samaritan' but each ship was independent as they necessarily would be too far apart to be commanded as a task force.
While searching, the rescue vessels would continue the Pathfinder's mission of charting the space drift that clutters the asteroid belt.
In addition to the commanding officer and the three cadets, the company of the Aes Triplex included Commander Hartley Miller, executive officer and astrogator, Lieutenant Novak, Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Thurlow, Bomb Officer, Lieutenant Brunn, Communications Officer, Sublieutenants Peters, Gomez, and Cleary, assistant engineer and communications watch officers respectively, and
Or. Pickering, ship's surgeon, along to care for survivors-if my were found.
The ship contained no marines, unless one chooses to count Dr. Pickering, who was technically a staff corps member of the marines rather than a member of the Patrol. this very task in the ship would be performed by the officers or cadets. Time was when the lowliest subaltern in an infantry regiment had his personal servant, but servants are so expensive a luxury in terms of fuel and space and food in lift through millions of miles of space. Besides that, Mime few manual tasks are a welcome relief from boredom in the endless monotony of space; even the undesirable duty of cleaning the refresher was taken in turn by the entire ship's company, in accordance with custom, except for the Captain, the Executive Officer, and the Surgeon.
Captain Yancey assigned Lieutenant Thurlow as training officer who in turn set up the jobs of assistant astrogator, junior communication watch officer, junior assistant engineer, and assistant bomb officer and arranged a schedule of rotation among these-quite unnecessary-positions. It was also Mr. Thurlow's job to see to it that Matt, Oscar, and Tex made intensive use of the one study projector available to the cadets.
The Executive Officer assigned other tasks not directly concerned with formal training. Matt was appointed the ship's 'farmer.' As the hydroponics tanks supply both fresh air and green vegetables to a ship he was responsible for the ship's air-conditioning and shared with Lieutenant Brunn (he tasks of the ship's mess.
Theoretically every ration taken aboard a Patrol vessel is pre-cooked and ready for eating as soon as it is taken out of freeze and subjected to the number of seconds, plainly marked on the package, of high-frequency heating quired. Actually many Patrol officers fancy themselves chefs. Mr. Brunn was-one and his results justified his conceit - the Aes Triplex set a good table.
Matt found that Mr. Brunn expected more of the 'farm' than that the green plants should scavenge carbon dioxide horn the air and replace it with oxygen; the mess officer
wanted tiny green scallions, fragrant fresh mint, cherry tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, new potatoes. Matt began to wonder whether it wouldn't have been simpler to have stayed in Iowa and grown tall corn.
When he started in as air-conditioning officer Matt was not even sure how to take a carbon-dioxide count, but shortly he was testing his growing solutions and adding capsules of salts with the confidence and speed of a veteran, thanks to Brann and to spool #62A8134 from the ship's files- 'Simplified Hydroponics for Spaceships, with Growth Charts and Additives Formulae.' He began to enjoy tending his 'farm.'
Until human beings give up the habit of eating, spaceships on long cruises must carry about seven hundred pounds of food per man per year. The green plants grown in a ship's air-conditioner enable the stores officer to get around this limitation to some extent, as the growing plants will cycle the same raw materials-air, carbon dioxide, and water-over and over again with only the addition of quite small quantities of such salts as potassium nitrate,
