Masters of Space | Page 7

question or who is in command of Project Theta Orionis at destination. We will now settle it in public. Your opinion of me is now on record, witnessed by your officers and by my staff. My opinion of you, which is now being similarly recorded and witnessed, is that you are a hidebound, mentally ossified Navy mule; mentally and psychologically unfit to have any voice in any such mission as this. You will now agree on this recording and before these witnesses, to obey my orders unquestioningly or I will now unload all Bureau of Science personnel and equipment onto this planet and send you and the Perseus back to Terra with the doubly-sealed record of this episode posted to the Advisory Board. Take your choice."
Eyes locked, and under Hilton's uncompromising stare Sawtelle weakened. He fidgeted; tried three times--unsuccessfully--to blare defiance. Then, "Very well sir," he said, and saluted.
* * * * *
"Thank you, sir," Hilton said, then turned to his staff. "Okay, Sandy, go ahead."
Outside the control room door, "Thank God you don't play poker, Jarve!" Karns gasped. "We'd all owe you all the pay we'll ever get!"
"You think it was the bluff, yes?" de Vaux asked. "Me, I think no. Name of a name of a name! I was wondering with unease what life would be like on this so-alien planet!"
"You didn't need to wonder, Tiny," Hilton assured him. "It was in the bag. He's incapable of abandonment."
Beverly Bell, the van der Moen twins and Temple Bells all stared at Hilton in awe; and Sandra felt much the same way.
"But suppose he had called you?" Sandra demanded.
"Speculating on the impossible is unprofitable," he said.
"Oh, you're the most exasperating thing!" Sandra stamped a foot. "Don't you--ever--answer a question intelligibly?"
"When the question is meaningless, chick, I can't."
At the lock Temple Bells, who had been hanging back, cocked an eyebrow at Hilton and he made his way to her side.
"What was it you started to say back there, boss?"
"Oh, yes. That we should see each other oftener."
"That's what I was hoping you were going to say." She put her hand under his elbow and pressed his arm lightly, fleetingly, against her side. "That would be indubitably the fondest thing I could be of."
He laughed and gave her arm a friendly squeeze. Then he studied her again, the most baffling member of his staff. About five feet six. Lithe, hard, trained down fine--as a tennis champion, she would be. Stacked--how she was stacked! Not as beautiful as Sandra or Teddy ... but with an ungodly lot of something that neither of them had ... nor any other woman he had ever known.
"Yes, I am a little difficult to classify," she said quietly, almost reading his mind.
"That's the understatement of the year! But I'm making some progress."
"Such as?" This was an open challenge.
"Except possibly Teddy, the best brain aboard."
"That isn't true, but go ahead."
"You're a powerhouse. A tightly organized, thoroughly integrated, smoothly functioning, beautifully camouflaged Juggernaut. A reasonable facsimile of an irresistible force."
"My God, Jarvis!" That had gone deep.
"Let me finish my analysis. You aren't head of your department because you don't want to be. You fooled the top psychs of the Board. You've been running ninety per cent submerged because you can work better that way and there's no glory-hound blood in you."
She stared at him, licking her lips. "I knew your mind was a razor, but I didn't know it was a diamond drill, too. That seals your doom, boss, unless ... no, you can't possibly know why I'm here."
"Why, of course I do."
"You just think you do. You see, I've been in love with you ever since, as a gangling, bony, knobby-kneed kid, I listened to your first doctorate disputation. Ever since then, my purpose in life has been to land you."

III
"But listen!" he exclaimed. "I can't, even if I want...."
"Of course you can't." Pure deviltry danced in her eyes. "You're the Director. It wouldn't be proper. But it's Standard Operating Procedure for simple, innocent, unsophisticated little country girls like me to go completely overboard for the boss."
"But you can't--you mustn't!" he protested in panic.
Temple Bells was getting plenty of revenge for the shocks he had given her. "I can't? Watch me!" She grinned up at him, her eyes still dancing. "Every chance I get, I'm going to hug your arm like I did a minute ago. And you'll take hold of my forearm, like you did! That can be taken, you see, as either: One, a reluctant acceptance of a mildly distasteful but not quite actionable situation, or: Two, a blocking move to keep me from climbing up you like a squirrel!"
"Confound it, Temple, you can't be serious!"
"Can't I?" She laughed gleefully. "Especially with half a dozen of those other cats watching? Just wait and see, boss!"
Sandra and her