Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

THE SCAVENGERS 105 voice, ‘Well, what d’you know,” and burst out laughing. The captain’s eyes looked bleak. He signaled for Bennett to warm up the drive elements. He would try just once more. But he didn’t get the chance. The fleet commander’s harsh voice burst in on them, wavering and fading in the way peculiar to a signal that is being transmitted from a ship in subspace. “Flagship to Scavenger Five-Three. Report please—” The voice broke off as the commander gasped in un- belief, then he shouted urgently, “Youre still on the planet, captain. Get off! Get off at once!” The captain jumped to obey, but his hand froze on the firing key as Harrison’s voice came again. It said simply, “I’m coming now, sir.” For seconds that seemed like an eternity the captain fought to reach a decision. Voices were shouting in his head about Service discipline, common sense, safety. Urging him to take off. Other voices were telling him to be a human being for once, instead of a soulless machine. He looked appealingly at Bennett, but the servomech officer wouldn’t meet his eyes. Bennett pointed suddenly at one of the screens. It showed the tiny figure of Harrison emerging from the mine shaft and sprinting for the ship. On one arm, from wrist to elbow, Harrison wore a beautiful, iridescent fur muff. / When Harrison burst into the con- trol room the great ship was already climbing. He had time to get to his couch and settle his burden gently on his stomach before the acceleration started huilding up, then he couldn’t move. “Seventy-five seconds,” Spence whispered, ‘“‘Oh, come on, Come on.” It sounded almost like a prayer. Slowly the air around the ship thinned. The huge, pock-marked sun, its corona clearly visible, glared in at them through the starboard screen. The sky was black. They were in space, the warp drive could take over. Twelve seconds after they had twisted themselves into the safety of subspace, the furiously expanding sphere of annihilation brought about by the detonation of the system’s sun vaporized the Crawler planet. Harrison lifted the furry bundle and shook it in the air. “I found it underneath one of the dead Crawlers. It’s a youngster. Cute, isn’t he?” “Cute, he says,” said Bennett in disgusted tones. He choked, and a fit of coughing took him. Spence said, “Better put it in suspended animation with the others. This air of ours is bad for it.” He was pleased with Harrison. The gunnery officer was going to turn out all right. Unavoidably, they’d had to kill a few aliens, but Harrison had been able, personally, to rescue one of their young, so that more than made up for it. He had no intention of resigning now, Spence knew; he probably felt quite a knight in shining armor. The captain had felt that way when he was a new boy, he remembered. Somehow, the feeling never quite wore off. It came of belonging to an organization dedicated to the job of protecting, assisting, and keeping the noses clean generally of every race in the galaxy that walked, wriggled, or flew and had intelligence. We’re just a flock of space-going guardian angels, he thought a little cynically, all we need are halos. He came down out of the clouds with a start to hear Bennett saying, “You know, I’d hate to have the job EComichbookssco im