“Ozaki, sir. Flight Officer Ozaki.”
The commander was in the process of scooping up another spoonful of mush when suddenly a thought struck him squarely between the eyes.
“Wait a second,” he said hastily, “you aren’t the scout who located the Imperial base, are you?”
“Yes, sir,” said the pilot in a cracked voice.
“Why didn’t you say so?” roared Krogson. Flipping on his intercom he growled, “Give me the Exec.” There was a moment’s silence.
“Yes, sir?”
“How long before we get to that scout?”
“About six hours, sir.”
“Make it three!”
“Can’t be done, sir.”
“It will be done!” snarled Krogson and broke the connection.
The temperature needle in the little scout was now pointing to a hundred and fifteen.
“I don’t think we can hold on that long,” said Ozaki.
“Nonsense!” said the commander and the screen went blank.
Ozaki slumped into the pilot chair and buried his face in his hands. Suddenly he felt a blast of cold air on his neck. “There’s no use in prolonging our misery,” he said without looking up. “Those spare batteries won’t last five minutes under this load.”
“I knew that,” said Kurt cheerfully, “so while you were doing all the talking, I went ahead and fixed the converter. You sure have mighty hot summers out here!” he continued, mopping his brow.
“You what?” yelled the pilot, jumping half out of his seat. “You couldn’t even if you did have the know-how. It takes half a day to get the shielding off so you can get at the thing!”
“Didn’t need to take the shielding off for a simple job like that,” said Kurt. He pointed to a tiny inspection port about four inches in diameter. “I worked through there.”
“That’s impossible!” interjected the pilot. “You can’t even see the injector through that, let alone get to it to work on!”
“Shucks,” said Kurt, “a man doesn’t have to see a little gadget like that to fix it. If your hands are trained right, you can feel what’s wrong and set it to rights right away. She won’t jump on you anymore either. The syncromesh thrust baffle was a little out of phase so I fixed that, too, while I was at it.”
Ozaki still didn’t believe it, but he hit the controls on faith. The scout bucked under the sudden strong surge of power and then, its converter humming sweetly, arced away from the giant sun in a long sweeping curve.
There was silence in the scout. The two men sat quietly, each immersed in an uneasy welter of troubled speculation.
“That was close!” said Ozaki finally. “Too close for comfort. Another hour or so and—!” He snapped his fingers.
Kurt looked puzzled. “Were we in trouble?”
“Trouble!” snorted Ozaki. “If you hadn’t fixed the converter when you did, we’d be cinders by now!”
Kurt digested the news in silence. There was something about this super-being who actually made machines work that bothered him. There was a note of bewilderment in his voice when he asked: “If we were really in danger, why didn’t you fix the converter instead of wasting time talking on that thing?” He gestured toward the space communicator.
It was Ozaki’s turn to be bewildered. “Fix it?” he said with surprise in his voice. “There aren’t a half a dozen techs on the whole base who know enough about atomics to work on a propulsion unit. When something like that goes out, you call Space Rescue and chew your nails until a wrecker can get to you.”
Kurt crawled into his bunk and lay back staring at the curved ceiling. He had thinking to do, a lot of thinking!
Three hours later, the scout flashed up alongside the great flagship and darted into a landing port. Right Officer Ozaki was stricken by a horrible thought as he gazed affectionately around his smoothly running ship.
“Say,” he said to Kurt hesitantly, “would you mind not mentioning that you fixed this crate up for me? If you do, they’ll take it away from me sure. Some captain will get a new rig, and I’ll be issued another clunk from Base Junkpile.”
“Sure thing,” said Kurt.
A moment later the flashing of a green light on the control panel signaled that the pressure in the lock had reached normal.
“Back in a minute,” said Ozaki. “You wait here.”
There was a muted hum as the exit hatch swung slowly open. Two guards entered and stood silently beside Kurt as Ozaki left to report to Commander Krogson.
XIII
The battle fleet of War Base Three of Sector Seven of the Galactic Protectorate hung motionless in space twenty thousand kilometers out from Kurt’s home planet. A hundred tired detection techs sat tensely before their screens, sweeping the globe for some sign of energy radiation. Aside from the occasional light spatters caused by space static, their scopes remained dark. As their reports filtered into Commander Krogson he became more and more exasperated.
“Are you positive this is the right planet?” he demanded of Ozaki.
“No question about it, sir.”
“Seems funny there’s nothing running down there at all,” said Krogson. “Maybe they spotted us on the way in and cut off power. I’ve got a hunch that—” He broke off in mid sentence as the red top-priority light on the communication panel began to flash. “Get that,” he said. “Maybe they’ve spotted something at last.”
The executive officer flipped on the’ vision screen and the interior of the flagship’s communication room was revealed.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” said the tech whose image appeared on the screen, “but a message just came through on the emergency band.”
“What does it say?”
The tech looked uphappy. “It’s coded, sir.”
“Well, decode it!” barked the executive.
“We can’t,” said the technician diffidently. “Something’s gone wrong with the decoder. The printer is pounding out random groups that don’t make any sense at all.”
The executive grunted his disgust. “Any idea where the call’s coming from?”
“Yes, sir; it’s coming in on a tight beam from the direction of Base. Must be from a ship emergency rig, though. Regular hyperspace transmission isn’t directional. Either the ship’s regular rig broke down or the operator is using the beam to keep anybody else from picking up his signal.”
“Get to work on that decoder. Call back as soon as you get any results.” The tech saluted and the screen went black.
“Whatever it is, it’s probably trouble,” said Krogson morosely. “Well, we’d better get on with this job. Take the fleet into atmosphere. It looks as if we are going to have to make a visual check.”
“Maybe the prisoner can give us a lead,” suggested the executive officer.
“Good idea. Have him brought in.”
A moment later Kurt was ushered into the master control room. Krogson’s eyes widened at the sight of scalp lock and paint.
“Where in the name of the Galactic Spirit,” he demanded, “did you get that rig?”
“Don’t you recognize an Imperial Space Marine when you see one?” Kurt answered coldly.
The guard that had escorted Kurt in made a little twirling motion at his temple with one finger. Krogson took another look and nodded agreement.
“Sit down, son,” he said in a fatherly tone. “We’re trying to get you home, but you’re going to have to give us
