Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 103: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

be tried and executed for having reacted to despair and the joosap that was given them. He waited until the pimply man had vanished. Brent heard the click that told of the tiny airlock closed. He swung away, then, across the dim space of the ship’s interior. It was as he wormed his way toward the overdrive compartment that things fell into place with a click that was almost audible in his own thoughts. He realized what the message Kit had given him meant. It was suddenly the clearest and most obvious thing itn the world that the planetary ruler of Khem IV would have his cooks executed if they served an Earth Commerce Commissioner a_ fruit called vistek on a planet called Khem IV. Vistek came from the other side of the Galaxy! It came from nine thousand light-years away! Brent could see precisely why that accident had made it necessary for theDeli/ah's overdrive to be cut off until Kit Harlow and her father were dead. It was a matter he was especially trained to see, because it was a matter concerning his Profession. V THE overdrive compartment, like all the others on the Delilah was a great round ball of metal with welded gores. Brent reached it and put his ear cautiously to the rounded wall. He listened for minutes. There were minute ringing noises in the metal, some of which were actually remote echoes of the air plant’s noises. But any large Structure of metal, unless especially muffled, always has such noises. Sometimes they are easily heard, and then Spacemen say that it is a singing ship and the superstition Is that it is lucky. The Delilah, though, was not musical enough for that. There was someone in the overdrive room. Brent made sure. So before he swung around and into the entrance, he CORniclooo SS CO