Spacehounds of IPC | Page 6

third check-station. "Unless I'm all out of control we'll check in
almost fourteen seconds minus on W41, and we may not even find him
on the center block of the screen."
When he plugged in W41 was on the block, but was in the extreme
upper right corner. They checked in thirteen and eight-tenths seconds
minus on the station, and a fiery dialogue ensued when the computer

questioned the accuracy of the location of the station and refused
point-blank to correct his course.
"Well, Breck, old onion, that tears it," Stevens declared as he
unplugged. "No use going any further on these bum reference points.
I'm going to report to Newton--he'll rock the Observatory on its
foundations!" He plugged into the telegraph room. "Have you got a free
high-power wave?... Please put me on Newton, in the main office."
Moving lights flashed and flickered for an instant upon the
communicator screen, settling down into a white glow which soon
resolved itself into the likeness of a keen-eyed, gray-haired man, seated
at his desk in the remote office of the Interplanetary Corporation.
Newton smiled as he recognized the likeness of Stevens upon his own
screen, and greeted him cordially.
"Have you started your investigation, Doctor Stevens?"
"Started it? I've finished it!" and Stevens tersely reported what he had
learned, concluding: "So you see, you don't need special computers on
these ships any more than a hen needs teeth. You've got all the
computers you need, in the observatories--all you've got to do is make
them work at their trade."
"The piloting was all x, then?"
"Absolutely--our curve so far is exactly flat ever since we cut off the
starting power. Of course, all the pilots can't be as good as
Breckenridge, but give them good computation and good check points
and you shouldn't get any humps higher than about half a centimeter."
"They'll get both, from now on," the director assured him. "Thanks. If
your work for the trip is done, you might show my little girl, Nadia,
around the Arcturus. She's never been out before, and will be interested.
Would you mind?"
"Glad to, Mr. Newton--I'll be a regular uncle to her."

"Thanks again, Operator, I'll speak to Captain King, please."
"Pipe down that guff, you unlicked cub, or I'll crown you with a
proof-bar!" the chief pilot growled, as soon as Stevens had unplugged.
"You and who else?" retorted the computer, cheerfully. "Pipe down
yourself, guy--if you weren't so darn dumb and didn't have such a
complex, you'd know that you're the crack pilot of the outfit and
wouldn't care who else knew it." Stevens carefully covered and put
away the calculating machine and other apparatus he had been using
and turned again to the pilot.
"I didn't know Newton had any kids, especially little ones, or I'd have
got acquainted with them long ago. Of course I don't know him very
well, since I never was around the office much, but the old tiger goes
over big with me."
"Hm--m. Think you'll enjoy playing nursemaid all the rest of the trip?"
Breckenridge asked caustically, but with an enigmatic smile.
"Think so? I know so!" replied Stevens, positively. "I always did like
kids, and they always did like me--we fall for each other like ten
thousand bricks falling down a well. Why, a kid--any kid--and I team
up just like grace and poise.... What's gnawing on you anyway, to make
you turn Cheshire cat all of a sudden? By the looks of that grin I'd say
you had swallowed a canary of mine some way or other; but darned if I
know that I've lost any," and he stared at his friend suspiciously.
"To borrow your own phrase, Steve, 'You'd be surprised,'" and
Breckenridge, though making no effort to conceal his amusement,
would say no more.
In a few minutes the door opened, and through it there stepped a
grizzled four-striper. Almost hidden behind his massive form there was
a girl, who ran up to Breckenridge and seized both his hands, her eyes
sparkling.
"Hi, Breckie, you old darling! I knew that if we both kept after him

long enough Dad would let me ride with you sometime. Isn't this
gorgeous?"
Stevens was glad indeed that the girl's enthusiastic greeting of the pilot
was giving him time to recover from his shock, for Director Newton's
"little girl, Nadia" was not precisely what he had led himself to expect.
Little she might be, particularly when compared with the giant frame of
Captain King, or with Steve's own five-feet-eleven of stature and the
hundred and ninety pounds of rawhide and whalebone that was his
body, but child she certainly was not. Her thick, fair hair, cut in the
square bob that was the mode of the moment, indicated that Nature had
intended her to