Astounding British Edition, Volume 8, No. 11 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

THE SPECTER GENERAL last time I got in a jam it took them two a to get to me. I’ve only got hours e es “Can’t make exceptions,” snapped Krog- son testily. “If I let you skip the chain of command, everybody and his brother will think he has a right to.” “Commander,” howled Ozaki, “we're fry- ing in here!” “All right. All right!” said the com- mander sourly. “Ill send somebody after you. What’s your name?” “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 Krog- son. Flipping on his intercom he growled, “Give me the Exec.” There was a moment’s silence. - : “Yes; sit?” ~ “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. “T don’t think we can hold out 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 louking 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 21 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 any more either. The syncromesh thrust baffie 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 suden strong surge of power and then, its converter humming sweetly, arced away from the giant sun in a long aweeD: ing 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 dozen techs on the whole base who know enough about atomics to work on a propulsion unit. When some- thing 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 think- ing to do, a lot of thinking!” Three hours later the scout flashed up alongside the great flagship and darted into a landing port. Flight Officer Ozaki was stricken by a horrible thought as he gazed affectionately around his smooth 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 CORNICE OOS Eo)