"You heard me!"
The skipper wheeled, fiery with wrath, and strode to the doorway. I
hurried after him. I whispered in his ear, "Take it easy, Captain. He's
the vice-president's nephew. Maybe you ought to go slow!"
"Slow?" groaned the skipper. "A fifty thousand dollar cargo ruined--and
you tell me to go slow? I'll see that idiotic son-of-a-space-wrangler
fryin' in chaos. I'll blast him out of space if I'm blacklisted for it!"
I said nothing more. What was there to say? Fifty thousand bucks worth
of cargo rotting in the hold. The Board would love that!
* * * * *
That was all until the next morning. The next morning I was on the
bridge when Captain Hanson had a visitor. Garrity, the Chief Engineer.
Garrity _never_ came to the bridge. So I knew, the minute I saw him,
that something was vitally wrong.
It was. Garrity's first words made that clear. He glared at the skipper
accusingly from eyes that were still faintly purpled.
"Captain Hanson," he exploded. "Would you be so kind as to tell me
where I can find my Forenzi jars?"