Astounding British Edition, Volume 8, No. 11 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

THE SPECTER GENERAL pretty hard. It’s either up or out—and out is always feet first.” “Put yourself in the sector commander’s shoes for a minute,” suggested the little man. “What would you do if a war base commander came through with news of a possible Imperial base?” A look of grim comprehension came over Krogson’s face. “Of course! I'd ground the commander’s ships and send out my own fleet. I must be slipping; I should have thought of that at once!” “On the other hand,” said Schninkle “you might call him and request permission to conduct routine maneuvers. He'll approve as a matter of course and you'll have an excuse for taking out the full fleet. Once in deep space you can slap on radio silence and set course for the scout. If there is an Imperial base out there, nobody will know anything about it until it’s blasted. I'll stay back -here and keep my eyes on things for you.” Commander Krogson grinned. “Schninkle, it’s a pleasure to have you in my command, How would you like me to make you De- voted. Servant of the Lord Protector, Eighth Class? It carries an extra shoe ration coupon!” “If it’s all the same with you,” said Schninkle, “I'd just as soon have Saturday afternoons off.” CHAPTER XII. As Kurt struggled up out of the darkness, he could hear a gong sounding in the faint distance. Bong! Bong! BONG! It grew nearer and louder. He shook his head pain- fully and groaned. There was light from some place beating against his eyelids. Opening them was too much effort. He was in some sort of a bunk. He could feel that. But the gong. He lay there concentrating on it. Slowly he began to realize that the beat didn’t come from outside. It was his head. It felt swollen and sore and each pulse of his heart sent a hammer thud through it. One by one his senses began to return to normal. As his nose reassumed its nor- mal acuteness it began to quiver. There was a strange scent in the air, an unpleasant sickening scent as of—he chased the scent down his aching memory channels until he finally had it cornered—rotting fish. With that to anchor on he slowly began to recon- struct reality. He had been floating high above the floor in the armory and the cap- tain = trying to get him down. Then 17 he had pushed a button. There had been a microsecond of tremendous acceleration and then a horrendous crash. That must have been the skylight. After the crash darkness, then the gongs, and now the fish—dead and rotting fish. “I must be alive,” he decided. “Imperial Headquarters would never smell like this!” He groaned and slowly opened one eye. Wherever he was he hadn’t been there before. He opened the other eye. He was in a room. A room with a curved ceiling and curving walls. Slowly, with infinite care, he hung his head over the side of the bunk. Below him in a form-fitting chair before a bank of instruments sat a small man with yellow skin and blue-black hair. Kurt coughed. The man looked up. Kurt asked the obvious question. “Where am 1?” “l’m not permitted to give you any information,” said the small man. His speech had an odd slurred quality to Kurt’s ear. “Something stinks!” said Kurt. “Tt sure does,” said the small man gloomily. “It must be worse for you. I'm used to it.” ' Kurt surveyed the cabin with interest. There were a lot of gadgets tucked away here and there that looked familiar. They were like the things he had worked on in Tech School except that they were cruder and simpler. They looked as if they had been put together by an _ eight-year-old recruit who was doing his first trial assem- bly. He decided to make another stab at establishing some sort of communication with the little man. “How come you have everything in one room? We always used to keep different things in different shops.” “No comment,” said Ozaki. Kurt had a feeling he was butting his head against a stone wall. He decided to make one more try. “T give up,” he said, wrinkling his nose, “where’d you hide it?” “Hide what?” asked the little man. “The fish,” said Kurt. “No comment.” “Why not?” asked Kurt. “Because there isn’t anything that can be done about it,” said Ozaki. “It’s the air conditioner. Something's haywire inside.” “What's an air conditioner?” asked Kurt. “That square box over your head.” Kurt looked at it, closed his eyes, and thought for a moment. The thing did look ‘ COMME OOS) <StiGO