Astounding British Edition, Volume 8, No. 11 — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

40 her on the bunk. After removing a small needle gun from her pocket, he left a box of headache tablets in easy reach, locked her inside, and went back to the controls. His fist was numb, and he felt like a heel, but there was no use arguing with a Dalethian. Clubbing her to sleep was the only way to avoid bloodier mayhem in which she might have emerged the victor—until the screen gave way. The power-indication was threateningly high as Roki activated the C-drive and be- gan piloting the ship downward through the fifth component. But with proper ad- justments, he made the process analogous to free-fall, and the power-reading fell off slowly. A glance at the C-maps told him that the /Jdiot would emerge far beyond the limits of Sixty-Star Cluster. When it re- entered the continuum, it would be in the general volume of space controlled by another interstellar organization called The Viggern Federation. He knew little of its culture, but certainly it should have facilities for repairing a set of screen-synchronizers. He looked up its capitol planet, and began jetting toward it while the ship drifted downward in C, As he reached lower energy-levels, he cut out the screen altoget- her and went to look in on Daleth Incor- porated who had made no sound for two hours. He was surprised to see her awake and sitting up on the bunk. She gave him a cold and deadly stare, but displayed no rage. “I should’ve known better than to turn my back on you.” “Sorry. You were going to—” “Save it. Where are we?” “Coming in on Tragor III.” “Tl have you jailed on Tragor III, then.” He nodded. “You could do that, but then you might have trouble collecting my fare from Beth,” “That’s all right.” “Suit yourself. I'd rather be jailed on your trumped-up charges than be a wisp of gas at ninety-thousand C’s.” “Trumped up?” “Sure, the pink pre-flight. hay. court will say that whatever happened was your own fault. You lose your authority if you fly pink, unless your crew signs a release.” “You a lawyer?” 3 “Tve had a few courses in space law. But if you don’t believe me, check with the Interfed Service on Tragor III.” “I will. Now how about opening the door. I want out.” - forms. ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION “Behave?” She paused, then: “My promise wouldn’t mean anything, Roki. I don’t share your system of ethics.” He watched her cool green eyes for a moment, then chuckled. “In a sense you do—or you wouldn’t have said that.’ He unlocked the cabin and released her, not trusting her, but realizing that the synch- ronizers were so bad by now that. she couldn’t attempt to go on without repairs. She could have no motive for turning on him—except anger perhaps. “My gun?” she said. Again Roki hesitated. Then, smiling faintly, he handed it to her. She took the weapon, sniffed scornfully, and cocked it. “Turn around, fool!” she barked. Roki folded his arms across his chest, and remained facing her. “Go to the devil,” he said quietly. Her fingers whitened on the trigger. Still the Cophian failed to flinch, lose his smile, or move. Daleth Incorporated arched her eyebrows, uncocked the pistol, and returned it to her belt. Then she patted his cheek and chuckled nastily. “Just watch yourself, commander. I don’t like you.” And he noticed, as she turned away, that she had a bump on her head to prove it. He wondered how much the bump would cost him before it was over. Treachery on Sol, perhaps. The pilot called Tragor III and received instructions to set an orbital course to await inspection. All foreign ships were boarded before being permitted to land. A few hours later, ‘a small patrol ship winged close and grappled to the hull. Roki went to manipu- late the locks. A captain and two assistants came through. The inspector was a young man with glasses and oversized ears. His eye- brows were ridiculously bushy and extended down on each side to his cheekbones. The ears were also filled with yellow brush. Roki recognized the pecularities as local evolutionary tendencies; for they were shared also by the assistants. Tragor III evidently had an exceedingly dusty atmos- phere. The captain nodded a greeting and re-— quested the ship’s flight papers, He glanced at the pink pre-flight, clucked to himself, and read every word in the dispatcher’s “Observation flight? To Sol?” He addressed himself to Roki, using the inter- stellar Esperanto. EoOmichbooks: (S@)